Unit 4

Human resource development in Rural sector

What Is Human Resource Development?

The term human resource development was first coined in 1969, referring to the training,
education, and development of the workforce. It aimed to bridge the gap between school-level
education and workplace requirements.

Depending on the median educational qualification available in your region, and the day-to-day
requirements of work, the definition of human resource development can vary widely.

For example, a plan to amplify people’s potential for a startup in Silicon Valley will look very
different from a human resource development program designed for a large factory in China.

In the early days, HRD would involve rigorous hands-on training focused on the acquisition of
hard skills. Today, the picture is different.

The skills profile of top-tier talent is highly layered, comprising a mix of hard and soft skills. HR
must pay equal attention to these areas of human resource development to bring out an
employee’s full potential.

In addition, strategies to improve culture and build a work environment conducive to up-skilling
and self-development also come under HRD. A data-driven mindset might also prove useful,
allowing HR to measure learning performance and dynamically update performance
benchmarks.
 For these reasons, we recommend an agile approach when defining human resource development
for your company, keeping in mind your organization’s unique needs and its potential to grow.

The Concept of Human Resource Development

Human resource development in the organisation context is a process by which the employees of
an organisation are helped, in a continuous and planned way to:

1. Acquire or sharpen capabilities required to perform various functions associated
with their present or expected future roles;
2. Develop their general capabilities as individuals and discover and exploit their
own inner potentials for their own and/or organisational development purposes; and
3. Develop an organisational culture in which supervisor-subordinate relationships,
teamwork and collaboration among sub-units are strong and contribute to the professional
well being, motivation and pride of employees.
This definition of HRD is limited to the organisational context. In the context of a state or nation
it would differ.
HRD is a process, not merely a set of mechanisms and techniques. The mechanisms and
techniques such as performance appraisal, counselling, training, and organization development
interventions are used to initiate, facilitate, and promote this process in a continuous way.
Because the process has no limit, the mechanisms may need to be examined periodically to see
whether they are promoting or hindering the process. Organisations can facilitate this process of
development by planning for it, by allocating organisational resources for the purpose, and by
exemplifying an HRD philosophy that values human beings and promotes their development.

What is the need of Human Resource Development (HRD)?

People need competencies (knowledge, attitudes, values and skills) to perform tasks. Higher
degree and quality of performance of tasks requires higher level of degree of skills. Without
continuous development of competencies in people, an organisation is not likely to achieve its
goals.

Any organisation that is interested in improving its services and its effectiveness needs to
develop its employee competencies to perform the tasks required to bring about such
improvements

The HRD is required for:

 Growth of organisation.
 Diversification in an organisation
 Renewing itself to become more effective
 Improving the systems and services of an organisation
 Change and becoming more dynamic
  Playing leadership roles

There are basically four dimentions of human resource development:-

 Health
 Education
 Skill development
 training

Nutritional status

A Nutritional Assessment can be defined as: a structured way to establish the nutritional
status and energy requirements by objective measurements and whereby, accompanied
by objective parameters and in relation to specific disease indications, an adequate
(nutritional) treatment can be developed for the patient. All this happens preferably in a
multidisciplinary setting.

 Nutritional status
 The definition of nutritional status is: the condition of the body as a result of the intake,
absorption and use of nutrition, as well as the influence of disease-related factors.
 How to measure?
 There is no golden standard for identifying malnourished patients or patients at risk.
Therefore, multiple parameters are used to constitute a representation of the nutritional
status of a patient.

Nutritional assessment, in any application, has three general purposes:

[Link] of deficiency states

[Link] of nutritional qualities of diets, food habits, and/or food supplies

[Link] of health effects.

Access to Basic amenities

Basic amenities are essential foundation for a decent living and it enhances economic growth
and quality of life. The scope of basic amenities include safe drinking water, sanitation, housing,
all weather road to village, electrification, fuel, connectivity, healthcare centre, school,
playground and recreational facilities and many more. There are non-negotiable conditions for
living but for last sixty years of planned development intervention, the Government has
neglected this aspect without any substantial achievement even today. Unless these basic issues
of the poor and the marginalised sections are not solved, it is difficult to ensure inclusive growth.
The long time negligence of the Government towards a section of people in a democratic setup
questions our very concept of nationhood and the ongoing development process.

Basic amenities are linked to qualitative and developed human living and the modern State has to
ensure this out of public finance through dedicated institutional arrangement. But this process
has not produced the desired result, especially for the deserving majority of the poor and
marginalised in States such as Odisha. The negligence in public investment for developing basic
amenities for last sixty years has widened rural and urban gap as a result of which mostly the
rural poor are migrating to urban areas for a better living. Studies found that lack of basic
amenities has wider impact over working condition and the trend shows that the work culture in
rural areas has been deteriorating with increasing health problems along with lack of
improvement in education and skill. The social life and living condition in rural areas and its
change process are linked to availability of basic amenities.

The living condition of common people reflects the socio-economic, political and environmental
development of a country. Mercer’s annual worldwide quality of living survey ranked Singapore
as highest ranking city in the Asia pacific region. The quality of living in Indian cities has been
poor in comparison to global standard. Among the Indian States, the quality of living and
availability of basic amenities is widely unequal. States such as Kerala, TN and AP are
comparatively better than Odisha which ranked near to the bottom of the list of the India Today
survey 2016.

It is important to note that 2011 census shows huge inequality in availability of basic amenities
between rural and urban areas and there is further inequality among different social groups. The
availability of piped water, electricity and toilets are not provided to more than one third of the
rural household. It shows our public investment in rural areas is not inclusive of poor and
marginalised and it failed to address the basic requirement of the common people to bring
change in their life.

The condition of the people in rural parts of the backward States such as Odisha is in worst
condition. The Dalit and Adivasi hamlets, primitive tribal groups in forest areas, fishing
community habitations in coastal areas, forest dwellers, small and marginal farmers,
sharecroppers, agricultural workers, household with traditional occupations, milk farmers,
mining and industrial areas and slums with casual mining labourer have no facilities of basic
amenities in their habitations. They have to struggle every day to collect water for bare needs and
managed with available minimum. They use open space for defecation, burn kerosene oil or
locally available fuel wood for food preparation and lighting the house. Their habitations are in
isolation and segregated without proper sanitary facility, animal shelter space, linking road,
drainage line and waste management facilities. The dependence of poor and marginalized on
public space has been sinking day by day with changing rural settings. The village forest, water
bodies and other common space are getting changed and scantily available these days. The
public amenities developed out of public fund mostly available to dominant sections of the
village and, by and large, everywhere social exclusion restricts the free access of the socially
marginalised groups.

The situation of women, children and elderly people and sick persons in family is worsening
further. This has an overall impact over the working hour of the men and women in family for
earning and other productive engagement. Globally it is understood that any human development
must begin with making available of basic amenities for life but why our Government,
corporates and communities have not paid adequate attention to the basic human needs and still
people continue to suffer.

The corporate philanthropy in India has not done much in creating basic amenities for the poor
and the marginalised. The Companies Act 2013, clause 135 and scheduled 7, speaks about
corporate social responsibility. It has created scope of philanthropy by corporates and spending
for creating basic amenities, specially targeting the poor and the marginalised.

The communities in rural areas have to change their mindset relating to basic amenities. They
should not wait for Government for a long time and where ever possible, the communities should
build amenities out of their community fund to make it more sustainable. It is found that mostly
people spend on customs, cultures and maintaining traditions but usually do not invest in basic
amenities. The poor and the marginalized communities should go for creating community assets
such as water bodies, public toilets, community space for recreational events and plantation out
of community fund. They should make efforts for the implementation of various Government
schemes in their hamlet. The role of Panchayatiraj institutions is most important in the whole
planning and implementation process. The Panchyatiraj institutions must focus more on
developing basic amenities in the hamlets of the poor and marginalised by utilising resources
available out of Central and State Government schemes for rural development such as
MGNREGS, Dindayal Upadhya Rural Electrification, lPG cooking gas for poor women, water
and sanitation schemes, Swachha Bharat sanitation programme, toilet, BASUDHA and Mukshya
Mantri Adibandha Yojana of State Government, hamlet linking road, drainage line, garbage pit,
Prime Minister Awas Yojana etc. The recommendation of 14th Finance Commission has created
scope for increasing public spending in rural areas. It is told that each Panchayat will avail
minimum Rs 80 lakh per year for the community development work of the panchayats. These
schemes of basic amenities need to reach to the needy in convergence through involvement of
the poor and marginalised in the planning and a transparent implementation process. The
political parties, CSOs, community leaders and others must get engaged with the community to
bring change in quality of living.

With increase in population and sinking of common space and privatisation of resources such as
water, forest and land, water bodies, rivers, pastures, coasts and public land, the difficulties have
been multiplied. like the Smart Cities, there has been attempt by the Government to build Smart
Villages. But these villages should be inclusive of the poor and the marginalised.

Population composition
 Population composition refers to the structure of the population.
 Population composition helps to know the number of males or female, their age-groups, literacy, their
occupation, their income level and health conditions etc.
 Population composition is the description of a population according to characteristics such as age and
sex.
These data are often compared over time using population pyramids.

What is meant by population composition?

 The structure of the population refers to population composition.

 The population composition helps in understanding the health conditions of people, their
income levels, their occupation, their gender, the age group that they belong to, and their
levels of education.
 A good way to look at the composition of the population in a country is by studying the
population pyramid, which is also known as the age-sex pyramid.
 The population pyramid throws light on how the population is divided among various age
groups i.e 10 to 14 years, 5 to 9 years etc.
 In each of those groups, the percentage of the total population are further divided into
females and males.
What are population pyramids? How do they help in understanding the population of a country?
A good way to look at the composition of the population in a country is by studying the
population pyramid, which is also known as the age-sex pyramid.

 The population pyramid throws light on how the population is divided among various age
groups i.e 10 to 14 years, 5 to 9 years etc.
 In each of those groups, the percentage of the total population are further divided into
females and males.
 The story of the people living in a particular country can be understood through the
population pyramid.
 Above 65 years, the number of aged people are known by the size of the pyramid at the
top and the level of births are reflected at the bottom of the pyramid, it shows the number
of children below the age of 15 years.
 The number of dependents in a country can also be understood by looking at the
population pyramid. The economically active groups are the working age population.
 The two dependent groups are those who are aged more than 65 years and the young
children who are aged below 15 years.
 The country with a high death rate and high birth rate will be narrow at the top and broad
at the base of the pyramid, respectively.
 The base of the pyramid is narrow in countries like Japan as they have low birth rates.
 The structure of the population refers to population composition.
 The population composition helps in understanding the health conditions of people, their
income levels, their occupation, their gender, the age group that they belong to, and their
levels of education.