The Department of Rural Development (DRD) is functioning under the School of Health Sciences and Rural Development, Gandhigram Rural Institute (Deemed to be University), Gandhigram. The Department offers academic programmes namely M.A. in Rural Development Studies (RDS) and Ph.D.

        The above said programmes intends to prepare individuals capable of informed and thoughtful development action, empowered with awareness of the complexity, having depth of the discourse on rural development and contributing for policy and action with special reference to the Indian context. Further, an important feature of the above programmes are that it attempts to equip the students with training in skills that they can put to use in any challenging situation either in the ¬field or in the policy sphere. The students are enabled to make smooth transitions from the world of studentship to the world of trained work.