UNNAT BHARAT ABHIYAN (UBA)
Historical Background
The dream of our national father Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi Ji in his seminal work, ‘Hind Swaraj’, the western developmental paradigm, based on centralized technologies and urbanization, has given rise to serious problems like increasing inequity (leading to crime and violence), and climate change due to rapid ecological degradation. To ameliorate these problems, it is necessary to promote development of rural areas in tune with Gandhian vision of self-sufficient ‘village republics’, based on local resources and using decentralized, eco-friendly technologies so that the basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, sanitation, health care, energy, livelihood, transportation, and education are locally met. This should be the vision of holistic development of villages. Presently, more than 70 per cent of the population in India lives in rural areas engaged in agrarian economy with agriculture and allied sector employing 51 percent of the total work-force but accounting for only 17 per cent of the country’s GDP. There are huge developmental disconnects between the rural and urban sectors such as inequity in health, education, incomes and basic amenities as well as employment opportunities – all causing great discontent and large-scale migration to urban areas. The imperatives of sustainable development which are being felt more and more acutely all over the world also demand eco-friendly development of the villages and creation of appropriate employment opportunities locally. Increasing urbanization is neither sustainable nor desirable. So far, our professional higher education institutions have largely been oriented to cater to the mainstream industrial sector and, barring a few exceptions, have hardly contributed directly to the development of the rural sector. Unnat Bhārat Abhiyan (UBA) is a much needed and highly challenging initiative in this direction.
Role of SIEM
As a part of the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA), which is a flagship programme of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, SIEM, Nashik has adopted five villages in Maharashtra, including a cluster of five villages in Nashik district (Welunje, Triadshet, Malegaon, Dudgaon and Beze). The UBA team at our institute actively targets to use the expertise available in the Institute to improve the quality of rural life through innovative and affordable technological interventions. Some of the issues addressed in the first phase are improvement in skill development for unemployed youth, quality of school education, agriculture, sanitation, health care, awareness towards digital India, renewable energy use, and self-reliance.
Unnat Bharat Abhiyan & Mission
Unnat Bharat Abhiyan a flagship programme of the government of India and inspired by the vision of transformational change in rural development processes by leveraging knowledge institutions to help build the architecture of an Inclusive India. This was the dream of the father of nation Mahatma Gandhi that real India is residing in rural areas and their development must be our top priority. This mission is conceptualised as a movement to enable processes that connect institutes of higher education with local communities to address the development challenges of rural India through participatory processes and appropriate technologies interventions for accelerating sustainable growth with available human and natural resource in the adopted villages. It also aims to create a virtuous cycle between the society and an inclusive university system by providing knowledge and practices for emerging professions and to upgrade the capabilities of both the public and the private sectors.
- Vision: Unnat Bharat Abhiyan is inspired by the vision of transformational change in rural development processes by leveraging knowledge institutions to help build the architecture of an Inclusive India and to have a paradigm shift in academic and research programs of the country.
- Mission: The Mission of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan is to enable higher educational institutions to work with the people of rural India in identifying development challenges and evolving appropriate solutions for accelerating sustainable growth. It also aims to create a virtuous cycle between society and an inclusive academic system by providing knowledge and practices for emerging professions and to upgrade the capabilities of both the public and the private sectors in responding to the development needs of rural India.
*Unnat Bharat Abhiyan Coordinator – Prof. Puneet S Jain, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Sandip Institute of Engineering and Management, Nashik.
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
– Mahatma Gandhi