Rajagiri Journal Of Social Development
Open Access
  • Year: 2025
  • Volume: 17
  • Issue: 2

Localising Sustainable Development Goals in Gram Panchayats: An Overview

Assistant Professor, Centre of Excellence in Sustainability, Environment and Climate Change, MIT-World Peace University, Pune, Maharashtra, India

*Corresponding Author pankajksk28@gmail.com, pankajaapk12@gmail.com

Online published on 18 February, 2026.

Abstract

UN has adopted SDGs in 2015, to address poverty, inequality, hunger and environmental sustainability with an agenda of No One Has to Leave Behind. Effective implementation of SDGs right from global to local level should be one of the major priorities’ the governing system of respective countries to ensure the inclusiveness and address the fundamentals of the local community especially in rural areas. Since India is a land for Village communities and Villages are the basic unit of administration this is an urgent call to take seriously to enhance the integrated and inclusive community development in rural areas through localising SDGs in Gram panchayat level with convergence of various schemes and programmes.

In this present paper focus would be to explore the ground realities, issues and challenges in Localising Sustainable Development Goals at gram panchayat level through an analytical approach. The paper also focuses on progress and process of village gram panchayat in terms of localising SDGs and its various metrics. Gram panchayats at village level are the developmental centres of villages to deliver basic services, infrastructure and developmental activities to its people under the provisions of constitutional 73rd Amendment.

Somehow most of the gram panchayats are lagging behind in order to implement the 29 subjects under the 243G in alignment with SDGs at village levels. This paper examines the role of local selfgovernance and leadership in localising SDGs at local level and tries to understand the core issues and barriers in response to gram panchayats.

In this analytical study existing reports would be used for analysing the response and status of localising SDGs in gram panchayat level in India. This paper concludes with suggestions for local actors and stakeholders to strengthen collective efforts towards localising SDGs to achieve its targets in a meaningful way.

Keywords

Local self-governance, Response, Localising SDGs, Analysis and 73rd amendment