Rural development is the key to overall development of the country.

What does Rural Development actually mean? Many meanings are given to this term and are all correct to a certain extent. The most suitable guide for our action seems to be the notion of Human Development brought out by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through its yearly Human Development Reports.

State Institute of Rural Development (SIRD) has been an integral part of YASHADA since its inception. It tries to focus on the man / women and especially the child. It believes that development lies in development of human folk.

SIRD has been undertaking training, research and consultancy assignments in Rural Development Sector and Panchayati Raj Systems. The training programmes are intended to create knowledge base, develop skills and understanding of various dimensions of rural transformation.

The vision of the Institute is to ensure human development in rural areas.

Main Themes for Training

• Education and Rural Development
• Nutrition, Health and Rural Development
• Information and Communication in Rural Development
• Community Participation, Micro Planning for Rural Development
• Integrated Watershed Development and Rain Water Harvesting
• Entrepreneurship and Marketing in Rural Areas
• Social Mobilization and Social Audit
• Empowerment of Women
• Sustainable Socio-economic Development

Mission

Mission is to facilitate human development in rural areas through continuous interventions by way of training, research and consultancy.

Mandate

• Conducting and organising training programmes, workshops, conferences, etc. for middle and senior level development functionaries.
• To lay more emphasis on capacity building of elected representatives of all the three tiers of Panchayati Raj Institutions through direct and indirect training related interventions.
• Providing the academic input through training, research, consultancy, preparation of syllabus and modules.
• To analyse and suggest solutions to problems encountered in planning and implementation of the programme for rural development, people centered development and governance, Panchayat Raj and related issues.
• To disseminate information through journals, reports and other publications in the furtherance of basic objectives of the SIRD.
• To provide services to:
  • Different departments of State Government
  • Some Non-Government Organisations
  • International Agencies like UNDP, UNICEF, etc. while conceiving some rural development project.

Achievements and Milestones

• During the last 5 years around 300 training programmes on Rural Development have been conducted in which around 6,000 officials and non-officials were trained.
• Action Research project funded by NIRD, Hyderabad at Wadeshwar was successfully completed during the period 1998 to 2003. While implementing this project got active participation of people especially women, and Social Mobilization Process developed which will help in the development of village.
• Consultancy provided by SIRD to Second State Finance Commission through active involvement of one of its Faculty members.
• Bagged consultancy from UNDP in the preparation of project on capacity building of Panchayati Raj Institutions which was also adopted by other Regional Resource Centres in the Country.
• For the first time, SIRD, YASHADA had been instrumental in preparation of the comprehensive State Action Plan for the training of more than 2.5 lakh PRI Functionaries for their capacity building as a part of National Action Plan as conceived by MoRD, Gol/NIRD, Hyderabad.
• Unique distinction of producing syllabus for various trainees conducted in 9 GTCs, 11 PRTCs & 1 CTC for grassroots level functionaries covering induction courses, foundation courses, workshops, seminars, specific training programmes on gender issues. Under UNDP funded "Capacity Building of Panchayati Raj Institutions" Project.
• Workforce of 70 trainers belonging to Maharashtra, Gujarat & Goa States developed.
• Training material on important themes like Development; Equity, Social Justice & Gender Issues; Social Mobilization; Entrepreneurship, Marketing & Employment; Decentralization; Functioning of PRIs; Information, Communication & Technology; And Social Audit. Training Modules on above themes are being developed.
• Decentralized Planning Laboratory through Social Mobilization Process developed at Wai Block in Satara Dist. with the help of more than 150 Self-Help Groups.
• Tie-up with Yeshawantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University, Nashik for the dissemination of distant learning package on above themes by starting Diploma and Certificate Courses.

They possess vast experience of working in field along the length and breadth of Maharashtra and have been associated with many rural development programmes directly or through training and research activities. They all are dedicated to cause of bringing about social change through motivation, awareness building and attitudinal changes in the mindset of both official and non-officials associated with the working of Panchayat Raj Institutions in the State of Maharashtra.

Research

The faculty members of SIRD have also taken up few research projects either independently or as a team. Besides some case studies on various programmes of Rural Development Dept. of Govt, of Maharashtra have also been taken up this year which will be documented and later disseminated through training at YASHADA.

Networking with other organisations

• District/Taluka level Institutes/Centres like 9 GTCs, 11 PTRCs, &1 CTC in vogue.
• Regional Training Institutes at Amaravati and Paithan (Dist.Aurangabad)
• SIRD, Goa & Gujarat as a part of RRC, YASHADA.
• SIRDs, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh (under UNDP-PRI Project)

Publications

Some prominent publications are :

• Micro-Watershed Development Three Success Stories from Maharashtra. Ramesh M Vaswani
• Training Module on Women and Panchayati Raj - Ravindra Chavan
• Syllabus for Gram Sevak Training Centres, Panchayati Raj Training Centres & Composite TrainingCentre (Marathi) - Ravindra Chavan
• Ata Bhakari Kaun Karnar (Marathi) - Ravindra Chavan
• Maharashtratil Panchayati Raj (Volumes I and II) (Marathi) - Ravindra Chavan
• Panchayati Raj Vyavastha: Navi Bhumika - Vikas Kharge