In this paper we attempt to analyse the status of food insecurity of West Bengal on the basis of NSSO unit level data for the years 2004-05 and 2011-12. In West Bengal, 32.2 per cent people were food insecure in 2004-05 which reduced to 20.1 per cent in 2011-12. In rural West Bengal the share of food insecure people decreased from 35.4 per cent in 2004-05 to 22 per cent in 2011-12. It also decreased in urban India. Our subgroup analysis points out that across the social groups the vulnerabilities were relatively high for STs and SCs than the others. Along with the economic factors the social and demographic factors were also equally important for the food insecurity of the households. The incidence of food insecurity decreased with the increase of the years of schooling, age of the head, and per capita cultivable land of the household. The status of employment and the choice of consumption basket of the households have also played an important role for the food security.

Over the past two decades, considerable efforts have been made to increase the quantum of institutional credit for rural development in order to reduce the extent of dependence of rural households on exploitative and non-institutional sources. There is, however a general feeling that the increased flow of institutional credit has not yielded the expected results. The vast majority of rural people were not involved in the development activities because they lacked the economic based frame to intervene in the local development process. In this scenario, the challenge was to develop a village centred development strategy for the marginalised rural poor who always experienced the shortage of liquidity to respond to new investment opportunities, especially in agriculture. The strategy was to develop in such a way that people can ‘plan’ for their means and have the ‘power’ to implement their programmes. Analysing this possibility, the non-governmental organisations decided that the strategy can be made possible by putting together small groups of poor people with similar interests and other homogenous factors. The present study was undertaken with the objective to study the development of socio-economic status scale for women self help group members.

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is a comprehensive and integrated flagship programme of the Government of India (GoI) to attain Universal Elementary Education (UEE) in the country in a mission mode. Present study undertaken in three Southern districts of West Bengal to assess the attitude of the guardians towards SSA. 180 respondents were selected from 9 villages from these districts. An attitude scale was developed and administered through interview method. A comparative assessment was done between the guardians of 6-14 yr. old students of elementary education from agri-occupational and non-agri-occupational communities. The study revealed that most of the respondents have low to moderate level of favourable attitude. Although they have considerably favourable attitude regarding the provision of free educations, books and other learning materials and midday meal facilities; but their favouritism is less in case of teachers’ attitude towards students and school environment. Some other aspects like assuring household food security, job security to the poor, considering English also as a medium of instruction to attract good students should be kept in mind for all-round success through SSA.

The process of development of rural area is not consequently possible without proper conservation and utilization of natural resources. The resources viz., land, water, forest etc., are the main base for the development of a state. Among all the resources, tanks are the smallest water bodies established by our forefathers, in order to catch, store and distribute the water in a proper manner. The self-help group (SHG) is, thus, conceived as a sustainable people’s institution, which provides the poor with the space and support necessary for them to take effective stops towards achieving greater control of their lives in society. Managerial skills of rural women in their SHGs are relevant to better management of the natural resources like rural tanks. At this juncture, there is an urgent need to motivate self-group members to take up the resources management at local level through skill development initiatives to look after the natural resources management for sustainable environment. The present investigation is conducted in eight select villages across Cuddalore district. The villages are purely tank based regions, where paddy and sugarcane are the major crops. It is therefore concluded that rural women SHGs through their skill development promote sustainable environment in the modernization of tanks is significantly useful to achieve sustainable development in villages.