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Guwahati: For the first time in the country, the government has joined hands with the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) to work on the implementation of the concept of ‘village planning’.
“Rural development is important to us. If India wants to become a $5 trillion economy, we need to solve the problems of its villages. For the first time in India, the government, in collaboration with top IITs, has come up with village planning,” said IIT-Guwahati director TG Sithram.
He was speaking at the valedictory session of the capacity building program in research and teaching-learning process in the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya (USTM).
The program is organized by the Department of Rural Development and USTM with support from the Indian Council of Social Science Research.
Addressing the participants, Sitharam said that the village planning initiative is expected to be implemented through town planning or city planning, which is very different from the existing concept of village development.
This rural plan will be both short and long term. Short-term planning is five years, while long-term planning is 25 years.
“IIT-Guwahati has selected two villages in Kamrup (rural) district of Assam in the first phase. We are looking for key areas or houses in the villages, exploring aspects such as village solid waste management and water supply to households,” he said. said.
“Social entrepreneurship should happen in a big way,” he emphasized.
“The village planning process was first started in India with 20 villages across India so far, which is being implemented by the Ministry of Panchayat Raj, all IITs, and 10 planning schools,” he added.
Sithram said funding for social science research is limited even though the government spends a lot of money on science and technology research.
“Social scientists should bring scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs. That will change the complete view. I firmly believe that social scientists should lead the research, he said.
“Besides, people of humanistic background should design the research problems and involve scientists and technologists in the process as it is an important aspect of research. Then it will be very useful. “Very useful as far as productivity is concerned,” the IIT-G director said.
After all, research and development is done for the common man. We have to get out of the way we have been doing research and broaden our horizons, he added.
He further said that development, be it healthcare, engineering solutions for flood control, disaster management, must come from our villages.
“Humans play a major role in research and development as the fields of science and technology come into its view,” he added.
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