President hopeful of India becoming 'Developed Nation' by 2020

Pune, Jan 17 (UNI) President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam today reiterated India would achieve the status of a 'Developed Nation' by 2020 but has many hurdles to overcome including a large population of 220 million people still living below the poverty line.

Addressing the Silver Jubilee Celebrations of the National Insurance Academy (NIA) near hear, Dr Kalam said ''They need education, habitat, health care and creation of employment potential. To meet their needs, we have the second vision of transforming India into a developed nation by the year 2020.'' Dr Kalam said, ''We have identified five areas where India has a core competence for integrated action: Agriculture and food processing, Reliable and quality electric power and surface transport for all parts of the country, Education and Healthcare, Information and Communication Technology and Self reliance in critical technologies. These five areas are closely inter-related and if implemented in a co-ordinated fashion will lead to food, and economic security, and national security. A strong partnership among the R&D, academy, industry, banking, insurance and the community as a whole with the Government departments will be essential to accomplish the vision for a developed India.'' Indian GDP is growing at an average rate of 8 per cent per annum, while the economists suggest to remove poverty of 220 million people we have to grow at the rate of 10 per cent per annum consistently for over a decade. One of the components through which the rural-urban divide will be bridged and prosperity will be brought to the seven hundred million people living in six hundred thousand villages is Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA).

He said the number of PURA units for the whole country is estimated to be 7,000. This envisages integrated connectivities to bring prosperity to rural India. These are - physical connectivity of the village clusters through quality roads and transport; electronic connectivity through tele-communication with high bandwidth fiber optic cables reaching the rural areas from urban cities and through Internet kiosks; and knowledge connectivity through education, vocational training for farmers, artisans and craftsmen and entrepreneurship programmes. These three connectives will lead to economic connectivity through starting of enterprises with the help of banks, micro credits and marketing of the products.

Each PURA cluster will connect about 20-30 villages depending upon the region and population and will cost about twenty million dollars. There are three types of PURAs: Plain terrain PURA, Costal PURA and Hill PURA. This is a viable and sustainable business proposition. After initial short-term employment during construction etc. We have to plan for initiating actions for providing regular employment and self-employment opportunities in nationally competitive small enterprises in agro processing, manufacturing and services sectors for about 10 to 15 per cent of the population of the village cluster.

If the industrial/business parks are marketed well, they can generate employment opportunities in support and services sector for about 30 per cent eligible people. This will provide sustainable economy for the rural sector. I would request NIA to participate in this national mission. This will lead to the removal of urban-rural divide, the President said.

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