India did not consist of binary rural and urban areas anymore, and the country needed to look at taking manufacturing to its villages to fill the income gap and achieve its development goals, experts said on Wednesday. 

At a conference on re-imagining rural India, organised by the Union Rural Development Ministry in collaboration with the World Bank and the Bills and Melinda Gates Foundation, NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand said that a major portion of resources allocated for rural development were on social schemes and stressed on the need for investment for overall development. 

Former secretary of Rural Development Ministry Nagendra Nath Sinha laid emphasis for formulating policies for rural areas that were fast transforming to urban areas. 

Speaking during the concluding session of the two-day conference, Mr Chand said that a clear trend had emerged over the years in the rural sector and there was a shift in balance from development approach to an approach which involved enabling a particular set of targeted groups, the ultra poor. 

“Look at it in terms of total resources spent by Ministry of Rural Development in 2022-23, the Budget was Rs 1.8 trillion for Central schemes. Out of that, Rs 1.6 trillion has gone for NRLM and MGNREGA…” he said. 

“Somehow, I feel the approach shifted to uplifting individuals rather than the whole rural area. Rather than supporting economic activities that will help everyone, focus shifted to the bottom 25 per cent or 30 per cent, I am talking of balance, I am not against it,” Mr Chand added.