faced by people living in rural areas.

There is, however, a large gap between the technologies that have been developed and its dissemination and actual use, particularly in rural production methodologies.

The main feature of the Rural Non-Farm Sector, is the predominance of “own account enterprises” (OAEs) that do not engage hired labour. It has been estimated that roughly about 77% of rural enterprise falls in this category, and this proportion has remained the same in the 1980s and 1990s. Since these OAEs are family based and very small enterprises, they cannot attract capital, and therefore cannot absorb the technology required for production on a higher and improved scale and to meet market demand.

Due to a lack of organisational support for these enterprises, the cost of distributing their products to market areas is high, and consequently most of them are run at a subsistence level, or at best, provide a subsidiary source of income.

The oft-quoted remark of Gandhiji that “Rural India is poor because there is no work in Rural India” emphasises the need to create employment by technology and market intervention in a sustainable manner.

The focus of Deendayal Research Institute is the training of rural youth in product or service development, and also in marketing, for them to emerge as entrepreneurs. Training in entrepreneurship is linked to the dissemination of appropriate technologies for upgrading rural production facilities.