According to the 2011 census of India,
62% of Indian population lives in rural areas. Madhya Pradesh has
more than 70% population in the rural areas and also 20% is tribal
population. However, there is a huge gap between the urban ‘India’
and rural ‘Bharat’. The urban India has greatly benefitted from the
fruits of globalization and liberalization but the same have not
trickled down to the rural India. This is the time when we are
witnessing a turning point of history, where we collectively decide
to close or widen this disparity. We are sure that without taking
the rural India along, any progress will be incomplete and
therefore, not sustainable.
As a management institute with a
social conscience, IIM Indore recognizes the overwhelmingly
important role that rural India ought to play in the overall
development of the nation. In this spirit, IIM Indore started a
Rural Immersion Program two years ago. The purpose of the program is
to initiate the exposure of the first year PGP program participants
to the ground realities of rural Madhya Pradesh. We understand that
the rural areas desperately require mechanisms and managerial talent
for realizing their potential of economic power houses. IIM Indore
wants to contribute towards a prosperous rural India through making
the program participants socially more aware, conscious, and
sensitive.
For the third edition of the Rural
Immersion program, the 450 participants were divided into 45 teams
of 10 each and placed under the supervision of the District
Collectors of 45 districts of Madhya Pradesh. The program was held
from Sunday November 27, 2011 to Saturday December 3, 2011. The
entire effort worked wonderfully well at sensitizing the
participants towards the needs and problems of the rural communities
and how the government machinery in addition to non-government
organizations are working towards the betterment of the people in
these districts. Different groups had many different stories to tell
and many suggestions to solve the problems of districts. The
overwhelming response in the post-trip debriefing session was that
the effort should be repeated more often for each batch and should
connect the teams with the districts that they visited in a more
permanent fashion. Many of the participants emphasized how one week
in a rural area changed their entire perspective about life at the
other end of the spectrum.
IIM Indore sincerely thanks to all the
district collectors, nodal officers district officials, and
participants for making this effort a grand success. We hope that
the effort progresses in scale and affects many more participants to
contribute more towards betterment of rural India, thereby leading
us to a better nation.
Please click on the district in the map below to learn about the experiences of the student team that visited that district.
