Kalam emphasizes need for inclusive development
Rasika Somarathna
Former Indian President Dr. Abdul Kalam expressed his willingness to
participate in the planning of pilot Provision of Urban Amenities in
Rural Areas (PURA) complexes in Sri Lanka to empower the 16 million
rural citizens.
The former Indian President while emphasizing the need to create an
environment of inclusive development where every citizen gets an
opportunity to build capacity and generate income based on their
competencies said "For this to be realized, the need of the hour is the
evolution of sustainable systems which act as "enablers" and bring
inclusive growth and integrated development to the nation".
He said that, one such sustainable development system is the
provision of urban amenities in rural areas through creation of three
connectivities namely physical, electronic, knowledge leading to
economic connectivity for 15,000 villages of Sri Lanka.
"I, along with my team of experts, would happy to participate in the
planning of pilot PURA complexes in Sri Lanka to empower the 16 million
rural citizens of the nation" he said while delivering a special lecture
at the launch of the Trilingual Sri Lanka initiative at Temple Trees,
Saturday.
The former Indian President said that there were operational PURA in
India already, initiated by many educational, health care institutions,
industry and other institutions. "The Government of India is moving
ahead with the implementation of PURA on the national scale across
several districts of India" he added..
Explaining a possible PURA structure for Sri Lanka he said that with
16 million rural citizens, representing about 79% of the population, the
country had potential of deploying about 160 PURA complexes based on the
core competencies of the cluster of villages.
He said that they could be focused on aspects: such as coastal PURA,
Plain PURA (based on inlands) and Hill PURA ( based on central
highlands).
"Of course, there are many more detailed aspects which would go
within each of the specific PURAs. |
