Govt to develop 300 smart villages

India is a predominantly rural country with 833 million people or 68% of India's population living in rural areas.

The rural areas generally lack access to basic amenities such as healthcare facilities, sanitation, drinking water, LPG gas connection, etc.

This not only leads to poor living standards in rural areas but also migration to cities in search of better opportunities.

As a strategy for holistic rural development, late President APJ Abdul Kalam mooted the idea of PURA (Providing Urban Amenities to Rural Areas).

PURA, launched by the UPA government failed, as it was restricted to the private sector with negligible government participation.

It could not take off at 4 of the 13 planned places and implementation at 9 places was also not good.

Rurban, an acronym of Rural-Urban, is an improvement over the PURA scheme.

The Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Rurban Mission aims to develop a cluster of smart villages as growth centres to trigger the development of the region.

Modelled on an initiative by PM Modi in Gujarat, SPMRM will help reduce rural-urban migration, arrest growth of slums in cities, improve living standard in rural areas, etc.

The Union Cabinet cleared the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Rurban Mission to bridge the rural-urban divide in access to basic amenities.

The mission, over the next 3 years, plans to develop 300 smart rural centres with each centre catering to 4 adjoining villages.

Touted as a mantra for urbanization, the Rs.15,000 crores scheme will seek funding from existing schemes and about 30% from the Centre.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the 'Rurban Mission' from Dongargad in Rajnandgaon district in Chhattisgarh to develop 300 villages as growth centres.

Out of these 300 smart villages, 100 rural centres will be developed by the end of 2016.

The PM highlighted that he has brought the government to the people unlike earlier programmes that were launched from Vigyan Bhawan, Delhi.