A lecture by VK Desai

V K Desai started his impressive lecture by hitting at the big companies saying that technology is used nowadays as a tool of mass destruction.

He emphasized the need of setting up of small scale industries in villages to make them sustainable. According to him the basic necessities of life should be accessible to common man, if this can be achieved then only proper development of country is possible, otherwise it would remain as a distant dream. He substantiated his point of view by giving various examples like setting up of cotton mill in the villages can help in fulfilling the needs of local villagers. Big companies what they are doing is they collect raw material at one place and start manufacturing in big factory. According to him this is not a very viable model . instead we can set up small cotton mills in many villages as it can a save a lot of energy and time .

He gave very good example that cotton which is grown in Assam is transported to Ahmedabad to manufacture clothes. So why not make cotton mills in Assam itself and start production there only.


He reiterated that if we want our rural India to develop then instead of raw materials we should export value added products from villages that will help in upliftment of rural economy and can help in bridging the gap between the rural and urban development.


He shared his experience of being in 72 countries for setting up of small oil mills and said that small oil mill is more viable option than setting up of big ones. He said “complicated machinery make simple things complicated “ so use simple technology to grow and he said “ small is profitable “

He stressed on the decentralization of rice mills so that rice can be made available to local people at a fair price.

He discussed many areas where there is a potential for development like usage of solar heaters, solar cookers, trapping of hydro power, all can be exploited for benefit of rural sector.