Rural Business Hubs

The Rural Business Hubs (RBH) is a steady influx of rural people to urban areas in search of employment and economic opportunity.  Also, there is a wide gap between rural and urban areas in terms of public services like health and education, in the quality of life and levels of income.  This gap is perceived to be widening.  The 73^rd Constitutional Amendment, 1992, has mandated Panchayats as Institutions of Self Government, to plan and implement programmes of economic development and social justice.  Government of India has recognized thatPanchayati Raj is the medium to transform rural India 700 million opportunities.  There is also a felt need to ensure that the benefits of rapid economic growth, unleashed through the reforms of the last two decades, need to flow to all sections of society, particularly to rural India. The Ministry of Panchayati Raj has adopted the goal of "Haat to Hypermarket" as the overarching objective of the Rural Business Hubs (RBH), initiative aimed at moving from more livelihood support to promoting rural prosperity, increasing rural non-farm incomes and augmenting rural employment. 

The budget allocation for the RBH scheme introduced during the Eleventh Five Year Plan w.e.f. 2007, has been fairly small, as a result of which the scheme has been restricted to the BRGF districts and districts of the North Eastern States. The implementation of the scheme has not taken off as anticipated and due to the lack of response by various partners, it has been decided to taper off the scheme during the 12th Plan. RBH projects have been sanctioned for various products including metal work, carpets, embroidery, biofuels, horticultural products etc. However, as the scheme is not being continued in 12th Five Year Plan, no further steps are proposed to be taken for creating awareness or training people in the production of these items.

           Details of total employment generated by the Rural Business Hubs that have been set up are not maintained by the Ministry of PanchayatiRaj. However, the number of beneficiaries of various RBH projects is given State-wise as below: 

Sl.No.	State	Number of Beneficiaries
1	Andhra Pradesh	500
2	Arunachal Pradesh	300
3	Assam	2220
4	Bihar	54
5	Chhattisgarh	4046
6	Haryana	100
7	Himachal Pradesh	500
8	Jharkhand	1030
9	Karnataka	200
10	Kerala	340
11	Madhya Pradesh	N.A.
12	Maharashtra	5487
13	Manipur	1065
14	Meghalaya	300
15	Orissa	120
16	Rajasthan	4050
17	Tamil Nadu	1140
18	Tripura	554
19	Uttar Pradesh	1116
20	Uttarakhand	2500
21	West Bengal	5860
	Total	31482

Note: N.A. = Not available