RANGU RAO

Overview

Rangu Rao is a Member of the Central Employment Guarantee Council and is also a Member of the Program Advisory Group constituted by the Ministry of Rural Development Government of India for overseeing the rollout of the new MGNREGA guidelines. He was a Member of the Steering Committee on Rural Livelihoods and Rural Governance for the 12th Five Year Plan and also the Chairperson of the Working Group on MGNREGA. He is a co founder of the Samaj Pragati Sahayog (SPS) and over the past 25 years has built it into one of India's largest grassroots initiatives spread over millions of acres of land of central India in and around Bagli in the Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh. Inspired from the ideas of Baba Amte who rejected charity and successfully empowered even the most challenged Rangu believes that location specific watershed development combined with low cost low risk agriculture nature based livelihoods and women led microfinance can dramatically raise rural incomes providing an enduring panacea to India s suicide ridden drylands.