Come on from Far and Near, and “nurture-your-roots”
Posted : December 28, 2004 at 4:30 pm [IST]
All these days, I keep on thinking about a sloka ‘Janani janmabhumisch swaragdapi gariyashi’. Perhaps this was somewhere in our Sanskrit course in school final or my grandfather might have taught me. I myself feel very strongly about doing something for my village. I tried to do something through my uncle. He was head of the panchayat-mukhia for a long time. He has done a lot for the village upliftment.He lost last election. Now, he wishes to keep himself aloof from the village politics. Perhaps the main obstacles are from my cousin brother who does not agree to any thing other than his work. But he is important. Uncle can’t do anything without his consent. After all he is running the show of agriculture of the family and doing it much better than uncle could do in his time. .
During my last visit to village home, I did talk with a cross section of people about creating a park and for starting a weekly market. But one is to pursue with a project to get that implemented. I will have to spend time there. May be one day I shall be able to do that or my children do it in my name. Recently I read an article in ‘India Today’ that reports about some NRIs who are giving back to their roots that was its due. Some are doing exemplary job. I wish all NRIs who have gone prosperous and can spare some thing for their villages must follow these examples. I am giving below in brief a part of the story from ‘India Today’.
In Punjab, Rajasthan, Karnataka or Gujarat, affluent first-generation expatriates are pitching in not only with dollars but also with hands-on involvement to leave an impact on the communities they hail from. Some still donate to religious and other institutions. But a small yet significant section is focusing its ideas-and investments-on projects in the core sectors of education, healthcare and community development.
Anant Pal Singh,a banking consultant donated $60,000 (Rs 27 lakh) to transform his village Brahampur in Ludhiana district of Punjab. He had left the village in 1965. Now he has started the Rs 1 crore development project under the aegis of the Rural Life Improvement Foundation, an NRI-floated NGO. He visits frequently to supervise the work. Brahampur today is refreshingly different-clean, concrete-paved streets lined with saplings, underground sewers, piped water supply and a waste-treatment plant.
Ganpat Patel, a California-based power equipment manufacturer from Bhunav village in Mehsana of Gujarat has contributed over Rs 15 crore. Patel is the inspiration behind the project of the 300-acre, landscaped Ganpat Vidyanagar campus in Kherwa village near Mehsana. The state-of-the-art institute houses colleges for engineering, computer technology, pharmacy and business management, besides India’s first sainik school for girls.
Sir Ghulam Noon, 64 who has a thriving food business in the UK has joined hands with Care International, UK, to set up a Rs 2 crore water-harvesting project in drought-affected Jhalawar district in Rajasthan. He has many projects in mind ranging from a community hall for Dalits to an intensive care unit at a hospital and a sports complex for children.
Budh Singh who went to Canada in 1960 now owns a million-dollar construction firm. In the past two decades, this 79-year-old Sikh has mobilised Rs 40 crore from over 15,000 NRI families to build a 250-bed, multi-speciality hospital, a nursing institute and a school at his village Dhahan in Punjab. The hospital is providing quality, highly subsidised healthcare to their kin back home. Budh Singh has also ingenuously roped in the North American Sikh Medical and Dental Association which lends 15 experts to the hospital on a rotation basis. On the anvil are plans for a Rs 6 crore trauma centre, a cardiac care centre and a medical college.
M.I. Sahadulla, 57-year-old doctor returned to Thiruvananthapuram after 27 years in Saudi Arabia to build the Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), arguably the largest NRI-supported super speciality hospital in the country. Nearly 65 per cent of the 500-odd shareholders of this Rs 55 crore project are non-resident Keralites and about 100 of them doctors.
K.B. Chandrasekhar, CEO of Exodus Communications, one of the most successful IPOs in the US with a $25 billion market capitalization, has put his alma mater Anna University and Madras Institute of Technology in Chennai at the cutting edge of research in the spheres of biometrics, medical diagnostics and sensor network. Chandrasekhar, 43, launched his pet project Anna University-KB Chandrasekhar (AU-KBC) Research Centre in 1999 and has pumped in Rs 10 crore. Chandrasekhar made a humble beginning from Kumbakonam in Tanjore district of Tamil Nadu and is now a software magnate in California. Chandrasekhar, who spends three months in Chennai every year, has lately contributed Rs 1 crore for nanobiology research.
B.V. Jagdeesh , Chandrasekhar’s colleague and co-founder of Exodus Communications has put Rs 4.5 crore in a trust to support the municipal-run schools in Karnataka’s capital.
Lajpat Rai Saini, another California resident, has decided to do something for his ancestral village Bajwara in Punjab. At 88, Saini has left the comforts of American life to nurture his dream projects- an institute of information technology and a 200-bed hospital in the backward Kandi area. He has so far ploughed Rs 16 crore into his project. As the largest pistachio-grower in the world with a $30 million turnover, Saini has made Bajwara his home now.
Kumar Malavalli, another Karnataka-born NRI made it big in the US as innovator of fibre channel technology, funded the 40-acre Indus International school in Bangalore which imparts world-class education. He advises the school on the latest education trends in the US and facilitates student-exchange programmes with the best schools in the US.
The trend among NRI do-gooders is to focus on comprehensive development in their hometowns. As NRIs pitch in with more passion-and planning-to do what is expected of the governments, the local people must take the full advantage of it and cooperate in making the project a success story. In many cases, one may find certain obstacles and local politics come in way. But there will be many who can be of help. India requires thousands of these benevolent sons who do something to improve the rural India.
I wish for six lakh villages of India some or the other donor comes forwards and sees that the school there imparts a good education and a healthcare unit is established to provide the basic minimum medical care for the rural people.
- Indra
Category: Rural development |
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