Our education didn't teach us about dignity of farming: Satyapal Singh

New Delhi: Lamenting the poor state of Indian villages, Minister of State for Human Resource Development Satyapal Singh on Wednesday said that our education failed in teaching people about the dignity of farming.

"There has been so much of mechanisation in farming. But unfortunately 76 per cent want to leave farming... Unfortunately because our education hasn't taught what the dignity of the farming is, " he said here just after launching the second phase of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan - a government scheme to get city students to contribute to village alleviation through technological interventions.

Singh said that over the year the independence of the village communities has gone, resulting in hordes of them migrating to live a "hell-like" life in city-slums.

He said that adopting of villages, which is the aim of the scheme, will help "reverse this migration".

As per the scheme, in first round, about 750 institutions (government and non-government) have been chosen to participate in the programme for 45,000 villages. However, it was said that a total of over 8,000 institutions will be needed to cover these many villages.

"IIT Delhi has been designated to function as the National Coordinating Institute for this programme and the Ministry intends to extend the coverage to all the reputed Higher Educational Institutes, in a phased manner.

"Each selected institute would adopt a cluster of villages/panchayats and gradually expand the outreach over a period of time," the HRD Ministry said in a statement.