1. Illiteracy: Illiteracy is a major social problem in Indian villages. Lack of educational institutions and poor quality education coupled with high rate of dropout rate has aggravated the situation. Majority of the educational institutions are suffering from educational infrastructures like adequate buildings, libraries, and reading rooms, sports grounds, etc.

There is a great disparity among rural and urban regions of Indian society regarding educational opportunities. Further, basic facilities like drinking water, sanitation facilities, transport and communication facilities are not up to the mark.

2. Rural Poverty: On the basis of an empirical study in seven districts in Rajasthan in 1996 sponsored by the World Bank it has identified the following causes of poverty in rural areas:

• Inadequate and ineffective implementation of anti-poverty programmes. 
• Low percentage of population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits. 
• Non-availability of irrigational facilities and erratic rainfall. 
• Dependence on traditional methods of cultivation and inadequate exposure to modern skills. 
• Non-availability of electricity for agriculture. 
• Poor quality of livestock. 
• Imperfect and exploited credit market, communication facilities and markets.
• Low level of education. 
• Absence of dynamic community leadership. 
• Failure to seek women’s cooperation in developmental activities and associating them with planned programmes. 
• Inter-caste conflicts and rivalries. 
• Spending a large percentage of annual earnings on social ceremonies like festivals, marriages, death feast, etc., and people unwilling to discard expensive customs.

3. Health Problems: About 74% of the doctors are in urban areas while 70% of the country’s population live in villages. This shows the extent to which skilled medical care is lacking in the rural areas. Fertility and Birth rate as well as death rates are very high in the villages. Infant mortality and maternal mortality are also high. The problems of Malnutrition, the sporadic outbreak of epidemic diseases like Cholera, Malaria, Plague, Dengue and other communicable diseases are quite common.

The housings are very much unsanitary while the addiction to alcohol & nicotine drugs makes the state of health condition even worse. Pesticides like Endosulfan also have caused much health hazards in rural areas. There are more than 5000 people affected by endosulfan in Uttara Kannada District alone.

At the same time soil has been degraded rendering it infertile due to excessive use of chemicals and fertilisers. It affects not only the yield but also health of the agriculturists.