Problems And Prospects In Promoting Rural Entrepreneurship

Today, India is considered to be the next world's superpower nation by 2050 with its growing economy as well as huge intellectual manpower. The question at this point of time is that to realize the dream, are we ready to take everyone & every part of our nation along the growth path or are we talking about few fortunate people with good education & few parts of the country, where everything is made for embracing the globalization. Approximately 65% to 70% of the Indian geography is constituted by villages where, till today people depend on agriculture as a major economic activity to lead their basic livelihood contributing major share in the growing economy. India is witnessing many shifts in the economic developments. Pre-independence agriculture was the main driver to the nation's economy. Post­ independence, that is during 1950's onwards, because of five-year plans; emphasis was laid on making India an industrialized nation by encouraging & developing manufacturing sector. 1991 saw the most turnaround phase of Indian economy, as it was open for global activities. India has been able to place herself in the international map because of IT & ITES boom & today service sector including banking & insurance is contributing major share to the economy. The cun-ent employment scenario demands highly educated youth who are willing to shift to urban area<; where usually industries are located. The rural poor & uneducated youth are migrating to urban & semi urban areas for getting employment in low wage & low skill jobs, such as in constrnction. The agriculture is getting hampered due to unavailability of labour as well as indefinite monsoon. So there is no definite pattern for economic development. Rural India is still waiting to get attention for development, be it is basic education, health, and infrastructure as well as employment opportunities. Does the new economic growth pattern include rural development? Does it provide opportunity for rural people to carry out economic activity? If so, what type of activity does it demand to sustain their lives? Can Rural Entrepreneurship solve the problem? Who has to take responsibility to uplift rural economy? The paper discusses about what are/may be the problems & prospect<; of promoting Rural Entrepreneurship to help rural India to participate in the economic activities to sustain itself in the global environment. Authors'*/** little effort to analyse the current situation with respect to Rural Entrepreneurship & ways & means to promote the same taking some live examples from different parts of the country by refen-ing to some related websites, magazines & books authored by eminent writers, may not fully represent the title of this paper.