The prime objective of NCRI is to strengthen rural India in a holistic manner, using education as an instrument of social advancement.

The objectives for which the Council is established are to :

• promote Rural Higher Education on the lines of Mahatma Gandhi’s revolutionary ideas on education so as to take up challenges of micro-planning for transformation of rural areas as envisaged in NPE 1986 (as modified in 1992); and as it was suggested by Radhakrishnan Commission (1948). 1986 (as modified in 1992); and as it was suggested by Radhakrishnan Commission (1948);
• consolidate network and develop Rural Institutes and endow them for recognition.
• develop Rural Institutes into Regional Development Institutes and Rural Universities, which shall function as hubs for knowledge connectivity, and emerge as effective agents for rural transformation in the backward regions, through voluntary initiatives, wherever possible.
• regulate the quality of education of rural institutes and educational programmes in the area of rural higher education of all the Universities in India.
• design a variety of courses at the tertiary level around emerging rural occupations.
• strengthen teacher training facilities for Gandhian Basic Education.
• strengthen the content of all these institutions with emphasis on science, technology and management on the one hand and traditional wisdom on the other.
• promote vocational training programmes and initiatives for self-reliance.
• encourage field-oriented courses of rural institutes.
• promote action-research as a tool for social and rural development.
• promote extension services to the community through micro-level planning, and
• advise Government of India on all such matters pertaining to rural institutes as may be referred to it from time to time