An Easy Way to PURA Goals
Posted : November 22, 2005 at 10:52 pm [IST]
Aditi Phadnis in ‘Business Standard’ dated November 19, 2005 wrote about the villages of Laloo Yadav, the former chief minister and Nitish Kumar, the prospective chief minister of Bihar. I don’t know if he has visited these villages. He wishes to link the two personalities based on the contrasts between the two villages.
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The contrast strikes you immediately. Nitish Kumar’s village, Kalyan Bigha, is just off a main road, a three-km walk on a kutcha path. Although he has been a chief minister, too, (though only for a short while), village residents say this has made no difference to their village - his mother put together some money to refurbish the local temple, but that’s about it. What has been developed are arterial roads in Nalanda (Kumar’s district), a railway network connecting all the eight Assembly constituencies in Nalanda, an ordnance factory (a legacy of Defence Minister George Fernandes when he was representing the Parliamentary constituency) and a hospital for bidi workers: in other words political investments made in the general good.Lalu Prasad’s village, Gopalganj unabashedly displays largesse showered on the region with the use of state funds. A helipad solely for Lalu and Rabri’s use (How many people would you find using helicopters to get around?), smooth roads inside the village so that the former CM-duo is not put to inconvenience when it visits Gopalganj, a road for the sole use of Lalu Prasad and his family, named after himself, built using Jawahar Rozgar Yojana funds…”
One don’t understand from this quote if the two have been able to provide all the basic requirements- such as electricity, telephone connectivity, education facility, and health care units for the inhabitants of their villages. Both have been influential enough to transform their villages as model village for the villages around to emulate. All these could have come within the ongoing schemes such as Bharat Nirman. If they have not been able to do that for their own villages, how can they do that for the remaining villages of the state? No one should feel proud that he didn’t do anything for his village as he couldn’t have done the same for other villages.
I read in media that the present chief minister of UP is transforming his native village into a heaven with huge lot of investment. I don’t think it wrong if it improves the overall quality of life for all common people of the place.
Our great President is propounding the concept of PURA (providing urban facilities in rural Area). I wish all politicians- particularly MPs and MLAs participate to realize the concept. Can you calculate the number of villages that would have been transformed by now, if each of these politicians had transformed just their own village or one village each in their constituency as model village in last 55 years? Can the parliament enact a legislation whereby the legislator and his family will have to spend a minimum of days every year in their villages or their adopted villages?
Another similar assistance for PURA can come from industry. Top 500 companies of the country can adopt and transform one village every year. Will it be too much?
Vinod Gupta of IIT, Kharagpur has already set an example by doing huge lot of work for his village. Many NRIs can follow that and do some thing for transforming their villages.
But it never means that the government can keep itself out. For example, it is the government that only can provide a quality electricity and road- the basic requirements of PURA for every village.
- Indra
Category: Rural development |
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