The Hindu Business Line : Get the `PURA' effect

THE President, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, has said that rural development through employment generation could be accelerated by adoption of `PURA' (providing urban amenities in rural areas) model and he suggested establishment of 7,000 PURA groups to cover 600,000 villages.

To set the PURA in motion, the physical, electronic and knowledge connectivities have to be created which would in turn lead to economic connectivity in the form of market formation for the village produce. Though government can support in this especially in the area of providing physical connectivity or the infrastructure development such as building roads and communications, private enterprises can play a key role by adopting the `PURA' village groups.

Speaking at an interactive session with the students of the Kumaraguru College of Technology (KCT) here, the President said with more than one-fourth of India's population still remaining below the poverty line and hardly 10 per cent of the youth continuing education beyond high school level, employment generation at village level under PURA is possible in areas of tourism, small trade and cottage industries.

Dr Kalam in this connection cited the example of a women's college in Vallam near Thanjavur, which has adopted 60 villages with three lakh population under village development in which the emphasis on jatropha cultivation gave a new beginning in income generation for the farmers.

The President who chose to speak on the topic `Indomitable strength' with the students said that the common element that run through any invention in any age had been the `indomitable spirit' of the inventor for whom nothing was impossible.

"The bumble bee with its disproportionate wings sounds as if it can't fly but it flies because the bee wants to fly," Dr Kalam said and called upon the students to aim high.

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