The HRD ministry today launched the second edition of the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan under which students from 750 higher educational institutions from across the country will adopt villages and visit them to get acquainted with lifestyle of people there and the problems faced by them.
The minister advised the students to involve local village people at every stage of problem identification and solving issues relating to health, cleanliness, waste management, plantation, financial inclusion, women and child development.
The mission involves students from colleges and universities will go to nearby villages to get acquainted with the life of village people and the problems faced by them in day-to-day life. Students are the real agents of change who can develop, empower and brighten the future of the country, Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar said while addressing the launch ceremony.
He said that this was also an opportunity for them to learn about the basic challenges faced by the rural people and to bring out practical solutions for their betterment.
"India had witnessed the migration of rural population in the past, but now the process of sustainable development through the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan 2.0 will help to reverse this migration, Minister of State for HRD Satya Pal Singh said.
Secretary (Higher Education), HRD ministry, R Subrahmanyam appealed to the student community to take the lead of this programme to make it a national movement.
750 institutions chosen in the first lot have participated in today's seminar; however, thousands of institutions have offered their willingness to joint this movement. To cover the 45,000 villages of the country under this movement, we need the participation of 8,252 higher education institutions, he said.
Under the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan 2.0, the institutions have been selected on a Challenge Mode and the scheme has been extended to 750 reputed Higher Educational Institutes (both public and private) of the country.
Also, scope for providing subject expert groups and regional coordinating institutes to handhold and guide the participating institutions has been strengthened. IIT Delhi has been designated to function as the mational coordinating institute for this programme and the ministry intends to extend the coverage to all the reputed higher educational institutes, in a phased manner. Each selected institute would adopt a cluster of villages/panchayats and gradually expand the outreach over a period of time, Subramaniam said.
Institutes through their faculty and students, will carry out studies of living conditions in the adopted villages, assess the local problems and needs, workout the possibilities of leveraging the technological interventions and the need to improve the processes in implementation of various government schemes, prepare workable action plans for the selected villages.
The institutes would be expected to closely coordinate with the district administration, elected public representatives of panchayat/villages and other stakeholders and will become a part of the process of development planning and implementation.
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