Centre to ink MoUs with firms on power from agri waste: Aiyar

Chennai, July 28 (UNI) Union Minister of Panchayati Raj Mani Shankar Aiyar today said the Centre will sign 22 MoUs with different firms in Karnataka for generation of electricity from agriculture waste for benefit of rural populace.

Addressing the third convention of National Alliance on Mission 2007 here, Mr Aiyar said the proposed Village Knowledge Centres (VKC) should be initiated at the village grama panchayat level for easy access to rural people.

The first priority of the government was to provide basic facilities like electricity and potable water to the villages.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today said the VKCs should ensure easy flow of public information to rural citizens irrespective of caste, class, gender and literary level by making use of the advancements in IT.

Mr Modi said the idea '' National Alliance for Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre'' conceived by Dr M S Swaminathan would empower the rural community.

Each centre would become an effective platform for the community to access vast resource of data, which were not available to them currently.

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