Dr. Priyanka Sharma & **Nishi Slathia

*The First Author is Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Jammu, J&K, India, 180006.

** The author is PhD Scholar in the Department of Strategic and Regional Studies, University of Jammu, J&K, India. 180006

ABSTRACT

Necessity is the mother of invention. Although there is a relentless problem of lack of mechanical and scientific knowledge in countryside, rural people becomes grassroots innovators to solve their and community’s problems by coming up with solutions. Rural Entrepreneurship is often conceived as innovation, creativity, the establishment of new activities, or some kind of novelty. The rural entrepreneurial ventures play a vital role in providing employment opportunities and income for the needy people in rural sector. It helps in sinking the exodus of people from rural to urban areas in search of livelihood and provision of employment opportunities. As the population pressure grows in the land-scarce and developing countries like India, the growth in the agricultural production cannot absorb the ever increasing rural labour force in farming employment. This leaves the rural non-farm sector in the form of rural SMEs (small and medium entrepreneurial ventures) to absorb those released from agriculture but not absorbed in the urban industries. The rural sector is best poised for a rapid expansion in the small and medium industry arena.

In the present scenario, majority of the rural natives are unaware of technological skills, marketing etc. Shortage of funding and raw materials, lack of proper infrastructure and communication facilities etc. are main difficulties faced by rural entrepreneurs. The policy makers and executors have to find scope and space in the farm based entrepreneurial ventures to address to the daunting problem of unemployment in the country. The experiences of the people involved in such ventures needs to be cashed and used to make shift in the policy paradigm in the given context. The present paper is an attempt to analyze the case study of a rural entrepreneur of India and analysis is done about his life experiences leading to the advent of innovation, which have transformed the lives of rural agricultural community.

Key words : Rural entrepreneurship, Innovation, Employment, Technology, Technical Knowledge.