Rapid Fire
Unnat Bharat Abhiyan
- 09 Jun 2025
- 2 min read
The Ministry of Education’s Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) completes a decade, redefining the role of higher education in rural development.
- About UBA: UBA (2014) aims at bringing transformational change in rural India by leveraging the resources of higher educational institutions (HEIs) to solve local development challenges through sustainable and inclusive practices.
- Need: UBA is crucial because 70% of India’s population lives in rural areas, and while 54-55% of the workforce is engaged in agriculture and allied sectors, they contribute only 15-18% to the national GDP, highlighting the urgent need for comprehensive rural development.
- Implementation & Reach: IIT Delhi is the National Coordinating Institute that oversees UBA, with 4,000+ institutions working with 19,000+ villages across 35 states and union territories.
- Key Focus Areas: Organic agriculture, Water and energy systems, Healthcare and sanitation, Rural crafts and housing, E-governance and basic amenities.
- Village Adhyayan (Participatory Learning) is central to UBA, promoting bottom-up planning rather than top-down imposition of solutions.
- Notable success stories:
- IIT Delhi’s lemongrass cultivation and oil extraction unit boosted farmer income by Rs 8,000–10,000 per month during harvest.
- NIT Manipur’s water purifier provides clean water to 2,000+ villagers.
- UBA 2.0 (2018) follows a Challenge Mode, requiring all HEIs to voluntarily adopt at least 5 villages, unlike UBA 1.0 (Invitation Mode), where institutions were invited to participate.
| Read More: Unnat Bharat Abhiyan Scheme |
