Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh on Saturday said India’s ongoing transformation has both positive as well as negative aspects.
The positives include increased consumption, rural connectivity, high representation in the electoral process and increased participation through self-help groups. The negatives were to do with the “collapse of public health system, ecological poverty, poor sanitation leading to malnutrition and poor hygiene and tribal deprivation,” he said.
Addressing the 32nd Annual Convocation of the prestigious Institute of Rural Management-Anand (IRMA) at Anand near here, he motivated the premier body to build institutional linkages with the Ministry of Rural Development. He also urged the graduates to see how these positive changes can be sustained and work towards mitigating and reversing the negatives in rural India.
IRMA Board of Governors’ Chairman Deep Joshi and faculty members participated in the convocation procession which saw 105 students graduating. Of these, 103 received their Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management (PGDRM) while two students were awarded doctoral degrees for the Fellow Programme in Rural Management (FPRM). Jeemol Unni, Director of IRMA, said the institute has set up the Verghese Kurien Memorial Lecture series in memory of its founder who passed away last year. She said the IRMA Five Year Plan envisages scaling up and building brand-IRMA in order to be more effective at the national and international level.
IRMA has increased its flagship PRM batch strength by 60 seats and is expected to launch a Masters’ programme in rural development in 2014-15.
In order to remodel IRMA as an institution of knowledge creation and dissemination, it has also launched four Centres of Excellence in sustainable livelihoods, social entrepreneurship and enterprises, policy and local governance, and for rural infrastructure and CSR.
Also on the anvil is the creation of a Grameen Gyan Kosh (GGK), a repository of an existing knowledge base exclusively for the rural sector.
The Ministry of Rural Development has extended a grant of Rs 25 crore to IRMA in 2012 for this expansion .