Rural Livelihood Diversification in West Bengal

The book is about how increasingly rural households are diversifying their livelihoods away from a reliance on farming alone towards other income generation activities that raise much needed cash and help to spread risks. It describes the challenges that they face in establishing and developing their activities and businesses, including both internal and external influences often beyond their control. Written in a very simple and lucid style, the book attempts to document and analyze the complex processes and outcomes related to diversification of rural livelihoods in West Bengal, India. The thematic issues of access, opportunities, challenges and impacts of rural livelihood diversification, covered in this book, are expected to be of interest for a wide constituency, including researchers, development practitioners, rural animators, and policy makers.