| Corruption free movement starts from home | | Next I would like mention about another great event which took place at Adi-chunchunagari while attending the FUREC (Foundation for Unity of Religions and Enlightened Citizenship). On the dais, I saw many leaders representing different religions, many political leaders, the Chief Minister and Cabinet Ministers. I addressed over 54,000 students of various schools and colleges hailing from Karnataka, followed by an interaction session. There a 10th class student Ms. M. Bhavani studying in Adichunchanagiri Composite High School, Sharavathy Nagar, Shimoga asked me the following question. | |
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| | "Dear Sir, What is the role of students to stop corruption which is deeply rooted in our county just like cancer?" | |
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| | Agony of the young mind is reflected in this question. For me it was an important question, since it came from a young mind. I was thinking what type of solutions we could give. My thought process was the following: | |
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| | I said there are one billion people in the country and nearly 200 million homes. In general there are good citizens everywhere. However, if we find that people in few million houses are not transparent and not amenable to the laws of the country, what can we do? Every home apart from parents have one daughter or one son or both. If the parents in these houses are deviating from the transparent path the children can use the tool of love and affection and correct the parents to come back to the right path. I asked all the children assembled in that gathering, "in case, parents of few children get deviated from transparency, will you children boldly tell your parents, father or mother, you are not doing the right thing. That is what we are taught by you and in the school." Most of the children spontaneously responded, "We will do it". The confidence comes from them that they have love as a tool. Similarly I have also asked the parents in some other meeting, initially there was a silence, later, many of them hesitantly agreed that they would abide by the children's suggestion since it is driven by love. They took an oath from me. The oath was "I will lead an honest life free from all corruption and will set an example for others to adopt a transparent way of life". | |
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| | Finally I told the students that they should start a movement starting from their home. Youth of today have to fight to eradicate corruption by making each home righteous. This happened in one of the constituencies of Karnataka. Normally every body complains about corruption. But here was a youth of Karnataka, who wants to contribute to remove the corruption. The message I would like to give it to you is, corruption free constituency, corruption free Karnataka and corruption free India are certainly possible and legislators of Karnataka could be the role models. Will you be? | |
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| Karnataka can do | | During my various visits to Karnataka, I have met people from different walks of life, extremely serious about development of the state. As a matter of fact, this inaugural function itself has created tremendous enthusiasm not only among yourselves (I am thankful for the responses from several of you for my questionnaire) but also from many citizens who have given valuable suggestions). I was happy to witness BAIF'S intergrated development programme at Manjunathapura, Tiptur Taluk, Tumkur, Karnataka and to meet the confident villagers. I had seen in Gulbarga, how people from many villages were looking upto the Suvarna Gramodaya rural development initiative. Hope it is progressing well. Recently I visited the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore and witnessed the many innovations in seed and farming practices done by the researchers and faculty members. Through the medium of Satellite connectivity, I interacted with farmers from Shimoga, I have interacted with the legal community, the scientists, people serving differently challenged, women entrepreneurs, teachers, artists, software experts, societal transformers, students and people from various professions. All of them convey one single message. What is that? We can make Karnataka a developed state and everyone is willing to contribute his or her bit. | |
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| | So, dear friends, here is a great opportunity for you, to take up this responsibility and work with a missionary approach to set targets for progress for society and achieve them. Now let me give some typical examples of developmental efforts from other states. | |
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| Water management | | I want to share an experience, recently I happened to witness. In Coimbatore, many areas are filled with houses and thatched homes and are densely occupied. As per the satellite map, these areas had been the place for lakes earlier, with their inlets and outlets sealed now. Few great minds joined together under the leadership of Mrs. Vanitha Mohan and started the initiative called Siruthuli (meaning small drop). This ecological project aims to bring back the glory of Coimbatore and its rich heritage. The project is represented by people from all walks of life and professionally organized. The primary focus is on large scale rain water harvesting, afforestation, sewage / waste water treatment and solid waste management. They have already standardized and revived 5 of the nine primary lakes and tanks in Coimbatore for large scale rainwater harvesting. Over 600 saplings have been planted on the bunds of the desilted tanks and are being maintained. They are moving towards a target of planting 15 lakh trees. The comprehensive study has indicated outlet of the city sewage as 10 million litres per day. A pilot plant is being taken up for sewage treatment to treat one million litres per day. The treated water will be sold to the agriculturists and industrialists as a revenue earning measure. The garbage and debris to the extent of over 26,000 cubic meters in one of the city's largest tank have been removed. These are the major achievements for developing a growing city by the people. Certainly in your constituency, you might have witnessed many water bodies are non-functional and may require de-silting and there will be many water bodies which are occupied. If you activate the water bodies that will definitely help improving the ground water situation of your constituency. | |
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| Agriculture productivity increase | | In the agriculture and farming sector, I had an interesting experience in Bihar on agriculture productivity increase, which I would like to share with you. The TIFAC mission has resulted in doubling the productivity of Rice and Wheat in areas near RP Channel-5 in Bihar using innovative integrated farming and marketing methods. These results have spread to many areas through people's efforts and are applicable to the whole of Bihar, Eastern Uttar Pradesh and other areas which have similar agro-climatic conditions. These regions could be transformed into the granaries of India. | |
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| | On 15th October, 2008 I visited Illedu village in Kancheepuram District., Tamilnadu. There, National Agro Foundation (NAF) is engaged in uplifting the quality of life of the rural citizens by providing know-how on advanced agricultural practices, characterization of soil, soil upgradation through proper systematic soil testing, matching the seed to soil, systemic approach for the pre and post harvesting methodologies and providing market connectivity. They have realized productivity increase ranging from 40% to 150% in different agriculture produces such as rice, sugarcane, vegetables and other horticulture products. I have come across similar success stories in respect of doubling seed cotton productivity in Punjab, when I visited Gheri Buttar village, where I met farmers. Also in the field of sugarcane cultivation, in Maharashtra, the intervention of the Vasant Dada Patil Sugar Institute, Pune has enabled farmers to increase the yield of sugarcane by 36 percent. These experiences can definitely be emulated by the farmers in your constituency. The message I would like to convey here is: "The farmers, agriculture scientists, industry and TIFAC worked together for doubling the food production by managing the existing environment with system oriented approach and inculcation of innovative agricultural practices among the team members". When this is possible, your leadership can bring together all the stakeholders and enhance the agricultural productivity in your constituency. | |
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| Sustainable Rural Development | | The integrated method which will bring prosperity to rural India is called PURA, which envisages four connectivities: the physical connectivity of the village clusters through quality roads and transport; electronic connectivity through tele-communication with high bandwidth fiber optic cables reaching the rural areas from urban cities and through internet kiosks; knowledge connectivity through education, skill training for farmers, artisans and craftsmen and entrepreneurship programmes. These three connectives will lead to economic connectivity through starting of enterprises with the help of banks, micro credits and marketing of the products. We need to establish approximately 7000 PURA Complexes in the country encompassing approximately 2.3 lakh Village Panchayats. There are four operational PURA's in the country pioneered by the private institutions independent of the government efforts, namely Periyar PURA in Vallam, Tamilnadu, Loni Pura in Loni, Maharastra, Chitrakoot PURA in Madhya Pradesh and Byrraju PURA in Andhra Pradesh. | |
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| | Now I would like to share the experiences of my recent visit to Byyraju PURA in Bhimavaram, Andhra Pradesh. Byrraju Foundation of Satyam has undertaken the mission of establishing 32 Ashwini centers benefiting 116 villages with the population of around 500,000 people. It has provided the electronic connectivity through wireless (512 kbps to 2 mbps), knowledge connectivity in cooperation with National Academy of Construction, Hyderabad and other domain experts, thereby creating economic connectivity in these villages. This rural intervention has resulted in reverse migration of citizens from Hyderabad to Beemavaram. | |
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| | The message here is: PURA is an integrated sustainable rural development programme with focus on employment generation through rural entrepreneurship by providing physical, electronic, knowledge and economic connectivity. PURA is a tool for bridging the Rural – Urban divide. | |
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| | Each one of you may plan and lead the realization of 5 PURA complexes in your constituencies with public-private partnership for bridging rural – urban divide thus bringing sustainable development of your constituency in an integrated manner instead of concentrating on individual infrastructure development, water and sanitation independently. It could be a Hill PURA, Plain PURA or a Coastal PURA in partnership with university or a corporate. | |
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| Improving urban constituencies | | The infrastructure in cities like Bangalore are overworked and I am sure you are working to enhance them, so that the various missions in aerospace, software, machine building, biotechnology and other fields which you have nurtured are carried forward as internationally competitive fields. Of course there is a great urgency to develop tier two cities like Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli, Dharwad, Belgaum, Gulbarga and Mercara with good connectivity and appropriately sized airports. One of the major factors is to provide pollution free atmosphere for healthy living. | |
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| | So far I have given certain working examples with respect to education, healthcare, corruption free society, agricultural productivity increase, water management and PURA for sustainable rural development. Dear friends, I am giving these real life examples so that it can increase your confidence and provide a message that "you can do it". In short I want to tell you, "you can do it", "your constituency will do it", "Karnataka will do it", and "India will do it". | |
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| | At this stage I would like to give you some suggestions regarding utilization of constituency development fund.
Hon'ble Members, as you are aware, you are all eligible for allocation of constituency development fund of rupees 7.5 crore during the next five years . You may visualize the total availability of rupees 7.5 crore and plan important infrastructural activities, which will be beneficial to the citizens of the constituency. Some of the programme which you can implement through this fund could be: | |
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| | 1. Identifying the water bodies in the constituency which need de-silting and opening of the inlet and outlet. As you are aware, whenever rain occurs, only the de-silted tanks will get full and also increase the level of the ground water in the region. You may also consider linking up the water bodies in the constituency. You will be remembered for this action by all the Members of the constituency. | |
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| | 2. Girls education needs the highest priority. Someof the major reasons, why girls are not sent to the school is the non-availability of toilets and the distance of the school from the village. There are many schools with just a single room. You can assist the existing schools or in starting special schools in your constituencyin improving children friendly infrastructure including toilets. These children and their parents will remember you for life. | |
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| | 3. You can conduct a survey of Primary Health Centres and ensure that the centre is provided with a Doctor and minimum supporting staff along with equipment and medicines. You can allocate funds for tele-medicine connectivity between PHC and the district hospital in your region which will enable provision of quality healthcare to the citizens. | |
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| | 4. For providing medicare to the remote areas of your constituency, provision of well equipped mobile hospital could be considered which will go to different villages of the constituency on specified date, so that the patients can be treated in the village itself. What could be better than providing health care to the needy. | |
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| | 5. Development of state of the art skill in welding, construction, repair and maintenance of electronic equipments will provide value added employment to the rural youth. You can organize special courses for the youth of the constituency for acquiring special skills in the polytechnic or ITI located in the constituency or the district headquarters. This is a great opportunity in creating global cadre skilled people. | |
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| | 6. Organizing street plays in the constituency depicting the social evils such as dowry, corruption, girl child feticide, gender inequality, child marriage and corruption, so that the citizens of the constituency are made aware and facilitated to improve their societal characteristics. This will be a great opportunity to inculcate value based societal system. | |
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| | Dear members, for all development missions to be successful and completed in time with value addition, science and technology has to be injected into all the missions at the right time and with the coordinated help of scientists, academicians, industry, NGOs and with the committed leadership provided in each missions. With the introduction of e-governance, in which your state has shown leadership, you can be enabled in your communication with the administrators and citizens and transparent management of missions. Certainly you, as the elected leader of the constituency, can become the facilitator for transforming your constituency into a fully developed constituency. Fortunately Karnataka is blessed with great scientific institutions like ISRO, DRDO, IISc, HAL, BEL, CSIR laboratories, Bangalore Agricultural University, IT institutions and number of educational healthcare institutions. Most of the development work in your constituency needs scientific and technological solutions to accelerate the development.. In such a situation, scientific linkages should be established with the nominated panel of experts maintained at the Chief Minister office. Hence I suggest, you should have an honorary advisory council for your missions, so that you can achieve the sustainable development in an accelerated fashion in the emerging knowledge society. | |
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