DC INTRODUCTION .

Communication refers to the exchange of information through interaction between two

individuals, within groups, or communities.

Development is the process of progress in social, economic, physical, and demographic

components of a nation.

Development Communication combines these two terms to become the process of influencing
behaviours of individuals or groups towards a desired goal, necessarily for the benefit of the
entire society. With the help of mass media it plays a crucial role in the social and economic
development of an individual, society, and nation.

The term was coined by Nora Quebral who defined it as an art and science of human
communication applied to the speed transformation of a country and a mass of its people from
poverty to a dynamic state of growth so as to achieve greater social equality.

It is an art because it involves creation of a strategy to communicate with the target audience
through creative mediums like songs, posters, dramas, films, etc.

It is a science because it follows a process and system that is formulated after in depth research
and scientific experiments.

Eg: If a campaign aims at propagating the advantages of HYV seeds, the most potent medium
will be through radio. We can create a skit that will motivate the farmers to adopt the modern
technique, which will eventually help them to yield more harvests resulting in higher income.

Development communication has two primary roles:

● Transforming role

It brings social change in a way that it inspired people to aim for higher living standards and lead
a better quality of life.

● Socialising role

It builds a suitable environment so that the proposed changes can be brought while keeping the
social fabric and society intact. It helps to draw the attention of the members of the society to
the richness of their own culture, values, customs, beliefs, and other aspirations.
 INDICATORS .
An indicator is a tool that measures an activity or a programme.

Economic indicators of development measure economic activity on the basis of capital growth
and output. Some popular of them are as follows:

1. GDP

Gross Domestic Product is the market value of all final goods and services produced within the
domestic territory of a country in a specified period (typically 1 year).

It can be mathematically represented as:

GDP= PXQ where P stands for market value and Q stands for the final goods and services
produced.

GDP can be measured by three methods:

● Production: It measures the sum of “value added” (total sales - value of intermediate
outputs) at each level of production.

● Income: It measures the sum of income generated by production services.

● Expenditure: It measures the sum of purchases made by final consumers.

GDP can be real or nominal. Real GDP accounts for inflation and deflation by using prices from
a base year (constant prices) instead of “current prices” used in nominal GDP. It is therefore
seen as a truer measure of output in an economy.

India’s current GDP stands at an estimate of 2.8 trillion dollars.

2. GNP

Gross National Product is the combined value of all final goods and services produced in a
country in a specific period including the net factor income from foreign countries.

It can be mathematically represented as:

GNP= GDP+NFIA

Unlike GDP, it defines production irrespective of the geographical location and allocates
production on basis of ownership.
Eg: Production of a german owned factory in India will be counted in the GNP of Germany in
addition to being counted as part of India’s GDP.

Thus, it helps to measure the contribution of residents of a country in the flow of goods and
services within and outside the national territory.

3. HDI

The Human Development Index is developed and compiled by UNDP to measure the economic
and social development level of various countries. It’s main purpose was to shift the focus of
development economics from national income accounting to people centred policies.

It measures 3 key dimensions of human development:

● A long healthy life

Measured by life expectancy at birth.

● Education and knowledge

Measured by expected years of schooling of children at entry level and mean years of schooling
of the adult population.

● Standard of living

Measured by GNI (Gross National Income) per capita at PPP (purchasing power parity).

As per the HDI report of 2019, India stands at a rank of 129 out of 189 countries.

Social indicators assess human welfare and quality of life to provide a picture of the social
effects resulting due to economic development.

1. Happiness Index

It is an annual publication by the UN sustainable development solutions network that ranks

countries based on how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be.

These rankings are based on polling (Gallup World Poll) which looks at six variables:

● GDP per capita

● Social support
● Health life expectancy
 ● Freedom
● Generosity
● Absence of corruption

The rankings are based on answers to the main life evaluation question asked in the poll. This is
called the Cantril Ladder. It asks respondents to think of a ladder with the best possible life for
them being at a 10, and the worst being at a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current
lives on that 1-10 scale.

It thus ranks cities around the world by their subjective well-being and digs more deeply into
how the social, urban and natural environments combine to affect our happiness.

India stood at a rank of 144 in the happiness index with Finland being at the top.

2. Human Rights

As per the UN they are rights inherent to all human beings by birth regardless of race, sex,
gender, nationality, ethnicity, language, and other status.

They include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion
and expression, right to work and education, etc.

Human rights establish moral standards that allow people to have dignity, freedom, equality,
justice, and peace.

The promotion of human rights is instrumental in development and progress of human society.
This role of promotion is played by development communication. It is only through it that people
can become aware of their rights and exercise them to lead a quality life, hold their leaders
accountable, and eventually contribute towards the growth of the nation.

When there is lack of respect for human rights it creates instability in the citizens’ mind which
leads to social unrest. This leads to reduced productivity at individual level which contributes to
lower growth and decreased investment. Thus, it is essential for boosting the quality of human
capital. For instance:

Right to freedom of movement enriches efficient resource allocation, employment, and

investment decisions. Eg: Workers from rural areas can migrate to work in industrialised cities in
a more profitable manufacturing sector. Same goes for skilled labour.

Right to freedom of information and speech would encourage discussion of new ideas and
multiply the dissemination of information which is very helpful in the modernisation of a society.
It also helps to ensure public efficiency and accountability among government officials where
lack of transparency can cultivate corruption which has adverse effects on the economy.
Freedom of assembly enables individuals to protest and openly criticise the government for any
misconduct in their policy statements or actions through dissent.

Securing human rights contributes to higher life expectancy, higher education and literacy
levels, better access to healthcare, reduction in poverty and income inequalities, etc. All of
which increases human development which leads to harmony and peace in the society.

An important achievement is the establishing of the relationship between human rights and
MDGs. Ultimately both of them aim to combat poverty, hunger disease, illetracy, and
discrimination against women while aiding human development.

3. PQLI

The Physical Quality Life Index attempts to create a practical measure of social distribution that
avoids the limitations of GNP.

It uses 3 indicators:

● Basic literacy rate

● Infant mortality
● Life expectancy at the age of 1

Each is placed in a fixed scale of 1-100 where worst (=1) is set on the basis of historical
experience, and the best (=100) is fixed in terms of what might be achieved in the next century
or so. The composite index is the result of an equally weighted summation.

4. ICT

Refers to information, communication, and technology. It includes hardware, processes and

systems that are used for storing and managing communications and sharing information.

UNDP has defined ICT as information handling tools including a varied set of goods,
applications and services that are used to process, distribute, and exchange information.

They include the old ICTs of radio, television, and telephones and the new ICTs of computers,
satellites and wireless tech like the internet.

ICt has established that there is an inherent relationship between information, communication,
and technology.

The ICT Development Index published by the United nations International Telecommunication
Union is used to monitor and compare development in information and communication between
countries over time.
It has a total of 11 indicators divided in 3 sub-indices:

● Access (ICT readiness)

It reflects the level of networked infrastructure and access to ICT:

- Fixed telephone subscriptions

- Mobile-cellular telephone subscription
- International bandwidth per internet user
- Household with a computer
- Households with internet

● Intensity (ICT use)

It reflects the use of ICT in the society:

- Individuals using the internet

- Fixed broadband subscriptions
- Mobile broadband subscriptions

● Impact (ICT skills)

Seeks to capture the capabilities/skills which are important for ICTs.

- Mean years of schooling

- Gross secondary enrolment
- Gross tertiary enrolment

Role of ICT

ICt has been used in the development sector for a long time. It plays the following roles:

1. Increases the economic and social well being of poor people by empowering
individuals and communities

Due to lack of knowledge and awareness aided by illiteracy regarding the welfare and poverty
alleviation schemes, the rural population particularly is unable to materialize their benefits for
their upliftment.

ICT can bridge this access gap and increase their participation in the process. Eg: The E-
choupal initiative of ITC Limited installed computers with Internet access in rural areas of India
to offer farmers up-to-date marketing and agricultural information. This led to an increase in
income, better yields, and fall in transaction costs for the farmers.

2. Communicates information about various development schemes, welfare

programmes and successful projects

Eg: UMANG mobile application was launched in 2017 to provide access to citizens to multiple
government services on one platform and intends to make all traditional offlines public services
available online 24x7. We also have the MyGov platform which allows citizens to contribute their
governance ideas.

3. Enhances the effectiveness, efficiency, and transparency of the public sector

Eg: The Bhoomi Project in Karnataka computerised the land records and enabled agencies to
deliver land certificates within 15 minutes, instead of 20-30 days. This reduced the transaction
costs and corruption, created a viable land market, and enhanced the quality of life of the
common man.

Another example is Amul that set up the automatic milk collection software which provides real
time information of milk collection to the stakeholders. The digitised system has facilitated
cashless payments and enabled transparency between dairy farmers and the milk collection
centres.

4. Extends educational opportunities to all sections of the society

Eg: SITE project was successfully able to educate the financially backward and academically
illiterate people on various issues like public health, nutrition, etc through satellite broadcasting.

Gyan Vani is an educational FM radio station that broadcasts day-to-day programmes being
contributed by various educational institutions and government ministries. It acts as a substitute
for formal education for the poor section of the society.

5. Increases productivity in health and agriculture

Eg: NDHM has been launched with the aim of building an integrated online healthcare system
that will have a unique health ID for every citizen, digitised health records, and registry of
doctors and health. This will help to bridge the rural-urban health divide and cut costs by
facilitating remote appointments and treatments.

The Kisan Bani programme on AIR encourages progressive farmers to share their knowledge
on crop cultivation, technology adaptation and various agricultural schemes.
Digital technology has enabled sophisticated precision farming agricultural approaches and
vapour transfer irrigation systems that can equip farmers to use water efficiently with minimum
wastage of natural resources.

APPROACHES TO DC .
DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION

This approach was given by E.M Rogers in 1962. It originated to explain how an idea or a
product gains momentum over a period of time and diffuses through a specific population or
social system.

Rogers advocated that the adoption of a new idea, behaviour, or innovation does not happen
simultaneously in a social system but is a process in which some people adopt the innovation
earlier than others.

There are 5 established adopter categories.

1. Innovators

These are the people who are most eager to try new ideas and adopt new practices. They are
adventurous, risk-takers, and often the first to develop new ideas. They are responsible for
introducing innovations to the larger population because they share their experiences with their
friends and community. Eg: Innovator of the EV.

2. Early adopters

These people represent opinion leaders as they enjoy leadership roles and embrace
opportunities of change. They use the data provided by innovators in implementation and
adoption of the innovation and don’t need much information to be convinced. Their
endorsements play a key role in bridging the adoption gap between the trendsetters and the rest
of the majority. Eg: An early buyer of the EV who posts a review of it on YouTube.

3. Early majority

They take time to make decisions but adopt new ideas before the average person. They
observe others’ experiences and only adopt it after seeing evidence that the innovation actually
works. They then become the reference group for subsequent late adopters. Eg: Person who
watched the EV review to finalise his purchase decision.

4. Late majority
They are skeptical of change and want innovations to be very well tested and used by the
majority before they risk trying it themselves. They trust opinion leaders and are responsive to
adoption after their successful reviews.

5. Laggards

They are highly resistant to change and wait till the innovation is completely mainstream before
adoption or in some cases they never change. These people are bound by tradition and are
very conservative.

This process of decision making goes through 5 steps:

1. Knowledge: Occurs when an individual is exposed to the innovation’s existence and

gains understanding of how it functions.

2. Persuasion: The individual forms a favourable or unfavourable attitude towards the

innovation.

3. Decision: The individual engages in activities that lead to a choice to adopt or reject the
innovation.

4. Implementation: The individual puts the innovation to use.

5. Confirmation: The individual seeks reinforcement of an innovation adoption decision

that has already been made and may reverse it if exposed to conflicting messages about
the innovation.

Rogers 4 elements proposed in his approach are:

1. Innovations: An idea, practise, or object that is perceived as new

2. Communication channel: Medium through which diffusion takes place.

3. Time: Length of time taken by different groups to adopt the innovation.

4. Social system: Interrelated network groups joined together to solve problems for a
common goal.

MAGIC MULTIPLIER

Wilbur Scramm extended the arguments of Daniel Lerner and E.M Rogers in favour of
modernisation through mass media which he termed as the magic multiplier.
Mass media is called the magic multiplier as it can multiply the messages and reach a large
number very fast at once. According to him it could act as an agent in creating ‘empathy among
masses’.

Schramm further argued that a nation that wants to accelerate the process of development must
allow information to flow as quickly and as widely as possible so as to make relevant information
available to the masses, as well as understand their needs and of the opportunities for meeting
them. The information must not only flow to them but also through them.

This will facilitate the decision making process and will help the people put the new practices
smoothly and swiftly into effect.

For social change of great magnitude, people must be informed, educated, motivated and
persuaded to adopt new customs and practices. The conventional channels of communication
such as interpersonal and group communication would not be able to meet this demand as the
target population and amount of information is very large and require a lot of time as well as
resources.

Mass media with its magical reach can do this job in less time and resources.

EMPATHY

Empathy, that is, the capacity to place oneself in the role of others is the main concept of Daniel
Lerner’s unilinear model of modernisation.

Lerner believed in the media's ability to transform its audience into an empathetic state where
they will embrace the ideas of modernity. He found that those who rated high in empathy were
also more likely to be mass media users who are literate, urban, and generally non-traditional in
their outlook.

He further added that a modern man places his trust in mass media rather than personal media
for world news, and prefers national and international news rather than sports, religious, or
hometown news.

He advocated that empathic people have a higher degree of mobility i.e a high capacity to
change and being more future oriented, which stimulates urbanisation, increases literacy, and
consequently enhances economic and political participation.

Hence, media in direct and indirect ways plays the role of a motivator or mover of change and
modernisation.
 COMMUNICATION & SOCIAL CHANGE .
GANDHIAN PERSPECTIVE

The gandhian perspective of development is hinged to the concept of swadeshi or home

economy.

Swadeshi called for self reliance, self governance, and self employment of people, especially
those in villages.

Economic and political power in the hands of local village assemblies would reduce their
vulnerability to the outside market forces and enable the villagers to develop a strong local
economic base by promoting local goods and services.

The two major themes in Gandhi’s concept of development or swadeshi were:

1. Use of the spinning wheel and khadi

He saw Khadi as a means of uniting people and acquiring economic freedom and equality. It
marked the decentralisation of production and distribution of the necessities of life through the
labour and intellect of the villagers.

Gandhi was against exploitation, unbridled consumerism, ruthless drive for economic
abundance, and concentration of wealth and power aided by industrialisation.

He was against mass production of commodities as it eventually gets dumped in village markets
thereby destroying their own production system, and believed that consumption should be
limited.

2. Local self governance and self reliance for social and economic development

Gandhi did not give importance to material growth and progress, but argued in favour of self
development and self reliance through decentralisation of control.

He emphasised on decentralised self dependent units that were bound together by mutual
cooperation and interdependence. It ensures efficiency, institutionalises people’s participation,
and brings greater equity in allocation of resources and income distribution.

It is for this reason he strongly advocated the Panchayati Raj System.

Gandhi’s aim was to have an all rounded development of the society in which human
development also took place along with social, economic, and political development.

His ultimate goal was Sarvodya- development of all facets of life.

Economic development to him did not mean about having more, but being more.

Thus, it can be said that his perspective was holistic in the sense it encompassed, social,
economic, and spiritual growth in synchrony.

PANCHAYATI RAJ

It is a 3-tier system of rural local self government in India to build democracy at the grassroot
level and is entrusted with the task of rural development in the country.

It was formalised in 1992 through the 73rd amendment of the indian constitution following
studies conducted by a number of indian committees on various ways of implementing a more
decentralised system.

The three levels are:

● Gram Panchayat (Village level)

It is the lowest unit of the Panchayati Raj System and consists of local governments at the stage
of villages and small towns headed by a Sarpanch. It is established in a village of 300 or more
people or 2 small villages are clubbed.

Members are elected for a period of 5 years by the members of the Gram Sabha.

Some of its main functions include:

- Providing sufficient water supply

- Maintenance of village roads
- Making the arrangements of lights on roads
- Public health, hygiene, and sanitation
- Development of agriculture activities, etc.

● Mandal Parishad/Panchayat Samiti (Block level)

It is the second joint tier of the system. Samiti is an area large enough for functions which
cannot be performed by the panchayats and yet small enough to attract the interest and
services of its residents. The president is called the Pradhan.

It generally consists of 20-60 villages with the population range of 35,000-1,00,000.

Its principle function is to coordinate the activities of the panchayats within its jurisdiction. It also
has the right to suggest measures to improve their functioning.
It carries out the directives of the state government pertaining to the implementation of specific
schemes.

Some other functions include:

- Establishment of primary health centres and schools

- Development of cottage and small scale industries, cooperatives, etc.

● Zila Parishad (district level)

It is the apex of the 3 tier system. It performs coordinating and supervisory roles for all
panchayat samitis within its jurisdiction. In certain cases, it also approves the budgets of
panchayat samitis.

It renders necessary advice to the government with regard to the implementation of various
department schemes.

It is also responsible for the maintenance of primary and secondary schools, hospitals,
dispensaries, providing essential services to the rural population, promoting local industries and
art, etc.

SITE

The satellite instructional television experiment was an experimental satellite communication

project launched in India in 1975 and ran for a year till 1976.

It was the first experiment to telecast educational programmes directly from satellite to
receivers. It was designed jointly by ISRO and NASA.

The television programmes were produced by AIR and broadcasted by NASA’s ATS-6 satellite
stationed above India during the project duration.

In 1975 when television sets were a rarity even in urban India, TV sets for community viewing
were set up in 2400 villages of 6 Indian states broadcasting programmes in 4 languages-
Kannada, Oriya, Telugu, Hindi.

The educational and developmental programmes aimed to educate financially backward and
illiterate people in remote rural areas on various issues with up to date news and on agriculture,
health, hygiene, family planning, nutrition, and primary education. They also aimed to sensitise
children and improve their basic skills in the areas of numeracy, language, and science.
1.5 hours of broadcast in the morning was devoted to school children while 2.5 hours in the
evening were meant for general audiences in the villages (this included a national broadcast in
hindi for half hour).

The objectives of this project were primarily aimed at:

- Gaining exposure in the development, testing, and management of a satellite based

instructional television
- Demonstrating potential value of satellite tech in the rapid development of effective mass
communication in developing countries
- Educating Indian populace on various issues and impart general school and adult
education to equip them with occupational skills

The experiment was very successful and similar projects were initiated in various countries post
SITE in India.

It played a major role in developing India’s own satellite program, INSAT. A large longitudinal
survey showed large gains in awareness, information and knowledge in hygiene and health,
political consciousness, family planning, and overall modernity.

Children also showed positive gains in the area of language development and in the attitude of
seeking new knowledge from new sources other than conventional classroom learning. It was
particularly successful in focused programmes such as the ones that involved training of
teachers and field workers.

In the area of agriculture, large number of innovations were triggered by the TV programmes,

The project thus successfully demonstrated that India could use advanced technology to fulfill
the socioeconomic development needs of the country and widening the horizon of the rural
population by exposing them to developmental messages through television.

KHEDA

The Kheda Communication Project was set up under SITE as a pilot project in 1975 and
continued till 1990. The site chosen was the Kheda district of Gujarat.

The Development and Education Communication Unit managed this project and produced the
development and educational programmes for it that involved participation by the local
communities.

The content primarily dealt with women’s empowerment, the importance of education, and satire
of social evils.
The hardware of KCP consisted of a low power transmitter located in PIj Village which was
connected to a local studio, the local Doordarshan, and the satellite earth station in Ahmedabad.

Around 650 community television sets were provided to 400 villages and were installed in public
places like schools, open village grounds where villagers gathered in the evenings to view the
broadcast.

Technicians periodically toured these villages to get services and repairs done on TV sets.

The project was highly dependent on audience research by carrying out formative and
summative evaluation of the villagers and the TV programmes.

The experiment aimed to understand the nature of development programmes in the most potent
audio- visual medium. It defined the process, style, and content of development communication
and provided a model that could be followed.

It played a crucial role in decentralising TV broadcasting.

The project promoted rural development and social change at the local level through active
audience participation. Villagers were involved as actors, writers, singers, etc., in the production
of serials, folk dramas, puppet shows, and other popular local formats of TV programmes.

Since the programmes dealth with local issues such as caste discrimination, exploitation,
alcoholism, minimum wages, etc., and had local artists who gave local solutions, it connected
deeply with the audiences.

A campaign approach was followed, thus, synchronising television programmes with local
efforts by development agencies.

The project was so successful that even when the parent SITE project ended in 1976, KCP was
extended indefinitely. In 1984, it got the UNESCO prize for rural communication efficiency.

MGNREGA

The Mahatma Gandhi national rural employment guarantee act is an indian law that aims to
provide the guarantee of right to work and ensure livelihood security in rural areas by providing
at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose
adult members volunteer to do skilled work.

It came to existence in 2005 and covers all the districts of India except the ones with 100%
urban population.
The most important part of MGNREGA’s design is its legally backed guarantee for any rural
adult to get work within 15 days of demanding it, failing which an unemployment wage must be
given.

Work is provided within 5km radius of the village. In case work provided outside this radius,
extra wages of 10% are payable to meet the additional transportation and living expenses.

Minimum wages vary from state to state and are decided by the state governments. The central
government pays for 100% of the wage expenditure and 75% of the material expenditure under
the scheme.

Under the scheme, employment related to public work and work at block level is given such as
plantation of trees, maintenance and building of check dams, farm ponds, sanitation facilities
like latrines, and construction of roads, anganwadis, etc.

Its objectives include:

● Augmenting wage employment.

● Strengthening natural resource management through works that address causes of

chronic poverty like drought, deforestation and soil erosion to encourage sustainable
development. Eg: Water conservation, drought proofing, renovating water bodies, etc.

● Strengthening grassroots processes of democracy.

● Infusing transparency and accountability in governance.

● Strengthening decentralization and deepening processes of democracy by giving a

pivotal role to the Panchayati Raj Institutions in planning, monitoring and
implementation.

The workers in MGNREGA are largely casual workers who are vulnerable and suffer from
chronic poverty when there is inadequate labour demand during lean agricultural seasons or
when there are some calamities like natural disasters or personal crisis like ill-health or
indebtedness etc. This will reduce the problem of excessive population pressures in Indian cities
and permanent migration trends as surplus rural labour will find employment in their own
districts.

The scheme has truly a positive impact on women empowerment, in so far as it has addressed
a number of practical gender needs. However, despite this, MGNREGA is not performing as
expected. The scheme's under performance can be attributed to insufficient fund allocation,
consistent late payment of wages, low wage rates and corruption.
 NRHM

The national rural health mission was launched in 2005, to provide accessible, affordable, and
quality healthcare to the rural population, especially the vulnerable groups.

It is operational throughout the country to establish a fully functional, community owned,

decentralised health delivery system with inter-sectoral convergence at all levels enduring
simultaneous action on a wide range of determinants of health like water, sanitation, nutrition,
gender equality, etc.

Its basic objectives are:

● Reduction in infant and maternal mortality rate

● Ensuring population stabilisation
● Prevention and control of diseases
● Upgrading AYUSH for promotion of a healthy lifestyle

NRHM lays emphasis on maternal and child health while recognising the inextricable linkages
between adolescent health, family planning, maternal health and child survival.

It aims at bridging the gaps in rural healthcare services with the following major initiatives under
it:

1. ASHA

Accredited Social Health Activists have been engaged under the mission for establishing the
link between communities and the health system. ASHA is the first port for any health related
demands of deprived sections of the population, especially women and children, who find it
difficult to access health services in rural areas.

2. Rogi Kalyan Samiti

It is a registered society that acts as a group of trustees to manage the affairs of the hospital.

3. The United Grants to Sub-centres

It helped Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANM) in health centres to be better equipped with basic
facilities like BP measuring equipment, weighing machines, stethoscope, etc., so they can easily
undertake proper healthcare services.

4. Health Service Delivery

It attempts to reduce the shortage of human resources in the public health sector by providing
doctors, specialists, ANM, staff nurses, etc on contractual basis.
Government has also provided basic emergency transport vehicles across the country.

5. Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakaram

Provides free to and fro transport , drugs, diagnostics, blood and diet to pregnant women and
sick newborns who come for delivery in public health institutions.

Overall the scheme has been a success, but it still suffers from challenges of inadequate
infrastructure capacity, shortage of trained and skilled human resource, corruption in fund
allocation, etc.

SDG

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs without undermining the
“integrity, stability and beauty” of natural biotic systems.

It's about improving the lives of everyone, everywhere while maintaining a balance between
economic growth, social and environmental welfare.

With this in light, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals,
were adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 as a part of the resolution,
‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ and took universal call
to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and
prosperity by 2030.

There are 17 SDGs which have 169 associated targets that comprehensively cover social,
economic and environmental dimensions of development and focus on ending poverty in all its
forms and dimensions.

India’s development mantra “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas” and the government welfare schemes
closely track the SDGs.

Eg: Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) is the world’s largest financial inclusion
programme and MGNREGA which guarantees employment aim at reducing poverty. The Beti
Bachao Beti Padhao initiative focuses on girl child education and protection which aims for
gender equality. The PDS system and the Mid-day meal programme help in achieving food
security and improved nutrition. The Bharatnet initiative which aims to provide high-speed
broadband connectivity to all village councils and campaigns like Make in India build resilient
infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.

The 17 SDGs are integrated i.e they recognize that action in one area will affect outcomes in
others. For instance, dealing with the threat of climate change impacts how we manage our
fragile natural resources, achieving gender equality or better health helps eradicate poverty, and
fostering peace and inclusive societies will reduce inequalities and help economies prosper.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are 8 goals that UN Member States
signed in September 2000 to try to achieve by the year 2015.

1. To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

2. To achieve universal primary education
3. To promote gender equality and empower women
4. To reduce child mortality
5. To improve maternal health
6. To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. To ensure environmental sustainability
8. To develop a global partnership for development

WATER HARVESTING MANAGEMENT

Water harvesting is seen as an integral part of sustainable land (and water) management. Major
parts of our country have been facing continuous failure of monsoon and consequent
deficit of rainfall over the last few years.

Also, due to rapid urbanisation and ever increasing population of India, the use of groundwater
has increased dramatically leading to constant depletion of groundwater level causing the wells
and tube wells to dry up. It is thus imperative to take adequate measures to meet the drinking
water needs of the people in the country besides irrigation and domestic needs.

Rain Water Harvesting is a way to capture the rain water when it rains, store that water above
ground or charge the underground and use it later.

It is a method which has been used since ancient times and is increasingly being accepted as a
practical method of providing potable water in development projects throughout the world.

Some common ways to harvest water involve capturing runoff from rooftops, local catchments,
seasonal floodwaters from local streams and conserving water through watershed
management.

Tamil Nadu has been a trendsetter in rain water harvesting, making it mandatory for all buildings
as far back as 2003. People there have used rainwater-harvesting tanks to capture, store, and
deliver water-related services to local villages.

Water user associations comprise local stakeholders who collectively maintain and manage
tanks, with responsibilities including distributing water among users, desilting the tank bed, and
clearing supply channels.
Local ownership, training, preparation and participation of communities is the key to RWH and
the single most important issue when seeking to establish sustainable RWH measures.

Experience in agriculture has shown that sustainable RWH technologies are those that are
developed and managed by the local farmers themselves. These farmers must be involved in
identifying technically feasible, sustainable and acceptable technologies.

Central to the involvement of communities is the inclusion of gender issues in the planning and
implementation of projects. Women play a crucial role in water provision as they are the ones
fetching the water. Hence they often have the greatest interest and the most to gain from water
supply projects their views and conditions must be included in the implementation activities.
Some benefits of water harvesting management are:

● Provides drinking water and irrigation water

● Increases groundwater recharge
● Reduces stormwater discharges, urban floods and overloading of sewage treatment
plants