National Seminar On Smart Villages & Sustainable Development

       “India lives in its villages" said Mahatma Gandhi,  India is a rural dominated country.

In the Indian context, villages are the heart of the nation. Hence, for the development to percolate to the grass root level, focus must be devoted to the progress of villages. The efforts of rural development may not work on the same principle as of smart city.

         The Smart Village concept should be based on the local conditions, infrastructure, available resources in rural area and local demand as well as potential of export of good to urban areas

         Smart Villages are the need of the hour as development is needed for both rural and urban areas for better livelihood. Benefits of the smart village efforts are foreseen to be tremendous.

Smart Villages concept has the potential to uplift the grass-root level of the country, hence adding feather in the overall development of India.

“Smart village means a place that is totally commited in the assignment of providing a better life quality for its inhabitants. It’s a village that have all the necessary conditions to live in community, respecting the environment, traditions, education, respecting the people and its values, and where every person is really involved in the local improvement of the social aspects. Share the ideas and solve the problems in a community basis, 
because everyone is focused in ‘doing their best’ to the sustainability of their village / community. “Cristina M. – Smarty Volunteer from Portugal

The concept of SMART Village is as defined below:

S	Social, Skilled and Simple	Zero Tolerance for Caste and Creed or better no caste & creed and no discrimination on Gender and Religion Everyone is Literate and skilled Simple living and high thinking
M	Moral, Methodical and Modern	Moral values of Gandhiji, Swami Vivekananda etc Methodical using Total Literacy and latest techniques Modern like cities
A	Aware, Adaptive and Adjusting	Highest level of awareness on global social & economic issues Adaptive and adjusting to fast changing environments
R	Responsive and Ready	Responsive to collective wisdom, cooperative movement & larger social issues Ready to generate own resources for self-sufficiency and self-reliance
T	Techno-Savvy and Transparent	Techno-savvy for IT and Mobile usage Transparent in harmonic relations and delivery of services

 

 

The smart city initiative is having good potential for urban development and India has also recognized this potential and is at the edge to start implementing this concept. This will facilitate better living for about 30% of the population, who live in urban area. But, more than half population will not be benefited from smart city development. Conditions in rural area are very different as compared to urban, so the same model of smart city cannot be implemented for the villages.