Lankan President inaugurates first 'Asian Mayors' Conference

Dehra Dun, Nov 26 (UNI) Sri lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse today inaugurated the first 'Asian Mayors' three-day conference by lighting the ceremonial lamp here.

Mr Rajapakse in his inaugural address said Asia was the continent of 21st centruy. He said the sleepy villages of the Asian countries had now woken up and the faster industrialisation was resulting in transfer of economy from rural to urban areas.

He said that Primary Education, road safety, malnutrition, poverty, garbage disposal were few of the problems faced by the urban areas which were to be given due attention.

Mr Rajapakse said that with growing problems in the urban areas the responsibilities of local government too has increased. He maintained that the effective leadership, managerial skills and maximum funds provision to local governments were some of the solutions to be imbibed.

Earlier, Chairperson of All India Council of Mayors and Mayor of Dehradun Ms Manorma Dobriyal Sharma welcoming the guest said the conference would provide platform to the Mayors of Asian countries to discuss and ponder over similar problems faced by them and find a solution to them.

She said though geographical distance between rural and urban is diminishing, yet in terms of availability of infrastructure the rural urban gap is widening.

''Government of India has taken several exemplary initiatives to strengthen local bodies specially late Rajiv Gandhi conferred wide and enormous powers upon local bodies that guarantees adequate freedom of operation to them,'' she said.

Ms Manorma said the conference would offer participants the opportunity to interact on issues that they confront in their cities and to share the experience they had gained in resolving them within their own cultural settings.

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