RSSB Test 2

The Rajasthan government has made substantial and sustained investments in rural infrastructure, social services, and livelihood enhancement programmes over the past several years with the overarching objectives of improving agricultural productivity, reducing rural poverty, narrowing the gap in living standards between urban and rural areas, and raising the quality of life and economic opportunity for the crores of citizens who live in the thousands of villages and small towns that constitute the rural heartland of the state. The Mukhyamantri Jal Swavlamban Abhiyan, an ambitious flagship water conservation campaign launched in 2016, mobilised government departments, gram panchayats, civil society organisations, and private donors in a concerted effort to construct and renovate water harvesting structures across the entire state. The campaign's operations covered all villages of Rajasthan in successive phases, prioritising villages in the most water-scarce desert and semi-arid zones in the first phase and extending to better-watered regions in subsequent phases. Under the campaign, thousands of johads, anicuts, check dams, talaabs, chauka systems for moisture conservation, and recharge shafts to replenish groundwater were constructed or restored, with significant community participation in site selection, labour contribution, and post-construction maintenance. The impact of the campaign on groundwater levels, particularly in the arid western districts where communities had been facing acute drinking water shortages even in years of normal monsoon, has been assessed by independent studies as significant, with measurable improvements in water availability in wells in the vicinity of restored structures. The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, implemented with particular intensity in Rajasthan given the large number of rural habitations lacking all-weather road connectivity due to the vast geographical spread of villages in the desert and semi-arid regions, has connected thousands of previously unconnected habitations to the road network, enabling villagers to access markets for their agricultural produce, health facilities, schools, and government offices throughout the year without being isolated by the flooding of earthen tracks during the monsoon season. Rural electrification under the Saubhagya scheme and the Mukhyamantri Vidyut Sudhar Abhiyan has brought electricity connections to virtually all rural households in the state, enabling the operation of irrigation pump sets for agriculture, lighting homes, powering mobile phones and small electronic devices, and improving the quality of life particularly for women and girls who benefit from safer and better-lit homes and from the ability to study after dark. The Rajasthan Skill and Livelihoods Development Corporation implements vocational training programmes in industrial and service sector skills for rural youth who lack access to formal technical education institutions, increasing their employability in the growing manufacturing and service sectors in urban centres and reducing the dependence of rural households on agriculture as their sole source of income. The MNREGA programme, implemented vigorously across all districts of Rajasthan, provides crucial supplementary income to rural households during agricultural lean seasons through public works in areas including water harvesting, land development, rural road construction, and plantation, with women workers constituting a very high proportion of the total workforce in the state reflecting the availability and accessibility of MNREGA work for rural women who face social constraints on other forms of employment. The Mid-Day Meal scheme serving hot cooked food to all students in government schools from Class 1 to Class 8 during school days has significantly improved school attendance, particularly among girls and children from lower-income families for whom the meal represents a meaningful nutritional supplement, while anganwadi centres under the Integrated Child Development Services programme provide supplementary nutrition to children under six, pregnant and lactating mothers, and adolescent girls in rural areas.