Ummid Assistant

Applications open for Manmohan scholarship at Cambridge

Opportunities for Indian students in US

Welcome Guest! You are here: Home » Views & Analysis

A compendium on rural India

Wednesday February 27, 2013 10:34:44 AM, Vishnu Makhijani, IANS

New Delhi: It's a labour of love that's taken 10 years and resulted in a 27-volume encyclopaedia on the demography, economy and social structure of rural India to aid the development process. It complements a similar work on the country's towns and cities.

"Tens of thousands of crores (of rupees) are spent on rural development in the country. This work will serve as a comprehensive one-point source of information on our 6,311 community development blocks, and 240,561 gram panchayats will increase the effectiveness of this investment," N. Seshagiri, who founded the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and served as special secretary in the Planning Commission, told IANS in an e-mail interview.

"Survey of Rural India - A Comprehensive study of Gram Panchayats and Community Development Blocks" (Rs.90,000/Gyan Publishing House) follows "Encyclopedia of Cities and Towns of India".

Earlier, the information was scattered over hundreds of sources including a large number of private organizations like NGOs, private charitable societies and companies, in addition to different departments and attached offices of the central and state governments and district administrations, census offices at the states and the centre etc. Also, there was a need to validate some of the data from these sources.

According to Seshagiri, the central and state governments and district administrations, as well as administrators of government schemes and projects and all decision-making levels "would benefit from the more than 200 information descriptors for each city and town of urban India and more than 175 information descriptors for each community development block (CDB) of rural India".

"It would be of particular use to those making studies on grass-root level planning and local policy making at the CDB, taluka, district and state level. Not only the planning of state and national schemes and projects but also their implementation will be better facilitated for increasing the effectiveness of investments," Seshagiri added.

Exactly how would this happen?

"Grass-root level planning requires information not only at the CDB level but also upwards up to the state level so that inter-se priorities can be established between towns or between CDBs. With better micro-level information across towns or CDBs, the state government can make better investment decisions and better need-based policies.

Similarly it can facilitate better need-based investment decisions by the central government by evolving better inter-se priorities between states. The private companies, with a nationwide presence like the telecom, infrastructure and agro-based companies, banks, retail chains & transporters can make better location decisions as well as make better marketing plans," Seshagiri explained.

The encyclopaedia would also be of "immense help" to universities and institutes, media houses, researchers, writers, scholars, policymakers, planners, administrators, political parties, librarians and multi-location entrepreneurs "and other stakeholders in the development of the nation who want to use information about the socio-economic, political and demographic structures of India," Seshagiri said.

As for the future, Seshagiri said the long-term goal was to bring about a one-point uniform data source of all the 54 volumes to become query-based information system through the internet and organized like some of the Amazon.com products.

Efforts are under way for letting the form itself evolve digitally over time so that future editions become more and more computer query-based databases," Seshagiri said.

With a doctorate in computers and communication from the Indian Institute of Science, Seshagiri was a scientist at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research till 1971. He then joined the government as director in the Electronics Commission, where he set up the NIC in 1976 and headed it till he retired in 2000.

He was an elected governor of the International Council for Computer Communication at Geneva and a nominated governor of the Unesco Institute for IT in Education at Moscow.

Seshagiri was given a Lifetime Achievement Award in IT by Dataquest and in Electronics by ELCINA. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2005.



(Vishnu Makhijani can be contacted at vishnu.makhijani@ians.in)

 


 





 

Home | Top of the Page

Comments

Note: By posting your comments here you agree to the terms and conditions of www.ummid.com

Comments powered by DISQUS

i

More Headlines

10 killed in fire at Kolkata market

10,000 Indian students unleash creativity on Windows at AppFest

India rebuts Hagel's allegations of financing problems for Pakistan

No Akbarabadi Mosque ever existed, apex court told

Sayeed makes emotional plea to PM for Afzal Guru's body

Persian paved way for secular, mass education in India: Historian

Egyptian student wins trip to India

Akbaruddin Owaisi admitted to hospital in Hyderabad

Woman cop held for sending vulgar SMSes to bureaucrat

100,000 Bangladeshis seek death penalty for war crimes

 

Top Stories

No fare hike, eye on travel comfort in India's rail budget

With no fare hikes, 106 new trains and a host of proposals for travel safety and comfort, such as escalators at key stations, a new e-ticketing system and a swanky coach in select  »

Mumbaikars dismiss rail budget as dull

Fare hike, over 100 new trains on cards in 2013 Railway Budget

 

  Most Read

Absolved of terror charges, Deccan Herald journalist walks free

After a six-month ordeal of being branded terrorists and charged with waging a war against the state, two of the fifteen arrested suspects, Muthi-ur-Rahman Siddiqui, a journalist who was working with Deccan Herald, and Syed  »

Sayeed makes emotional plea to PM for Afzal Guru's body

People's Democratic Party (PDP) patron Mufti Muhammad Sayeed Tuesday wrote an emotional letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking return of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru's body to his family, saying it could "retrieve trust" of the state's people. The former Jammu and  »

 

  News Pick

Persian paved way for secular, mass education in India: Historian

"Aside from Muslims, no other Indian of a caste lower than Brahmins had access to literacy. In such a situation Persian offered itself as a language open to one and all," he said  »

Akhilesh undertakes biggest reshuffle of bureaucracy

The 11-month-old Akhilesh Yadav government has undertaken the biggest reshuffle of the bureaucracy by transferring 51 Indian Administrative Service, 48 Provincial Civil Service, 88 Indian Police Service and 92 Provincial  »

SC declines to hear plea by Sahara Group companies

In a setback to Sahara Groups's two real estate companies, the Supreme Court Monday declined to entertain their plea to be allowed more time to deposit investors' money with market regulator Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and file documents. "You have not complied with it  »

Hyderabad Blasts: A lawyer's questionnaire to police chief

For, scanning news reports I see that over a week, EVERY name of an alleged suspect is a Muslim name. Even names of alleged organisations allegedly linked with the blasts, are Muslim  »

 

Picture of the Day

Paratroopers in formation of Akashganga during the Indian Air Force Fire Power demonstration Exercise 'Iron Fist 2013' at Pokharan, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan on February 22, 2013.

 

Recommend the story to your friends

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

RSS  |  Contact us

 

| Quick links

News

 

Subscribe to

Ummid Assistant

 

National

Science & Technology

RSS

Scholarships

About us

International

Health

Twitter

Government Schemes

Feedback

Regional

History

Facebook

Education

Register

Politics

Opinion

Newsletter

Contact us

Business

The Funny Side

Education & Career

 

 

Ummid.com: Disclaimer | Terms of Use | Advertise with us | Link Exchange

Ummid.com is part of the Awaz Multimedia & Publications providing World News, News Analysis and Feature Articles on Education, Health. Politics, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Industry etc. The articles or the views displayed on this website are for public information and in no way describe the editorial views. The users are entitled to use this site subject to the terms and conditions mentioned.

© 2012 Awaz Multimedia & Publications. All rights reserved.