A Letter to People’s President
Posted : April 20, 2005 at 10:26 pm [IST]
Respected President Sir
Like many others in India I look at you as the living role model for this generation. I got really excited with your PURA (Providing Urban facilities in Rural Areas)concept for the rural development. There can’t be better way to bring about the changes to the quality of life in rural areas. I have request and few suggestions to bring that faster.
Can you not move to Rameshwaram after the completion of your term as President? With the new technologies of connectivity in place, you can pursue your technical pursuits for the benefits of the countrymen from there too. With your presence and blessings at Rameshwaram, the place and perhaps the districts around the place will undergo an automatic developmental transformation. Your actions can also become a benchmark for others. Your stay in Delhi or Chennai will hardly benefit the common people of the cities. I wonder why all the leaders (of all the fields), even well intentioned ones, are sticking to these big cities. And even if they end their lives in places where they were born or they studied or worked, it will serve some purpose. if that happens, at least some useful memorials in form of educational institute or library or a science center or a hospital might come up there. Why don’t we think it essential to payback to the places that played so important role in our lives?
Sir, I have some other suggestions too. Will you, Sir, in one or the other of your interactions with MPs and MLAs request them to spend at least a week in a year in one of the villages of their constituencies, may be their own village. All those getting elected today are those who have already left their villages for all practical purposes and lost the real touch with them. Even those with houses and landed properties in the native places either rent the properties out on lease or even sell it to shift to some urban areas of their choice. They can’t just live there even for a night. They hardly do anything so that their living and also of others there becomes comfortable enough with availability of basic facilities. The same is true even with highly placed IAS and IPS officers, and people in judiciary and other institutions. And this is setting so bad an example that even teachers, advocates and people of other professions with lesser means are leaving their native places. They prefer to buy even smaller dwellings in filthy towns and shift after their retirement. I f they start living in their villages; they may bring some of the amenities automatically. The villages will undergo transformation for improvement. These people may also influence the authority concerned to get electricity, road and telecom facilities in the villages.
Another suggestion relates to the people of defense forces, who respect you as their supreme commander. The rural areas are still providing the maximum number of people to the defense. Please advise the authority to educate, train, motivate, and encourage these people so that on their return to their native places after retirement they become good teachers for village schools, skill trainers in repair and maintenance of agricultural equipment and other areas, rural consultants for commercial farming, or entrepreneurs in their own places instead of taking up some very low grade jobs such as security staffs in some metros. Defense departments can easily incorporate some programs that will increasingly benefit the rural society and environment.
Sir, our villages do require assistance from technocrats and bankers too. Architects must develop cost-effective housing models of different sizes for various regions in the country. And the bankers that are providing the loan for urban housings must come out with some good product for the rural population too. There will be many buyers. After all about 30% of the rural inhabitants are rich enough to afford it. Rural housing sector can create a huge employment opportunity too for the local manual workmen.
Sir, to make PURA successful, people at higher end in urban areas must move towards toward villages. They can taste a better life there. But like every thing else perhaps, this also needs marketing.
As soon as you announce your intention to settle down at Rameshwaram, the place will become important and known worldwide. For you it will be easier to bring it in World heritage list. And my dream will come true. Once the Golden Quadrilateral and N-S Corridor expressway get completed, I shall be fulfilling my wish of pilgrimage to Rameshwaram that will include the visit to your hermitage or science center too. Be the Shiva.
Respectfully,
Indra
- Indra
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