Address at the CEOs' Summit

TRANSFORMING INDIA INTO A DEVELOPED NATION

I am indeed delighted to be here in this distinguished gathering of personalities from India and abroad in the divine presence of Her Holiness Mata Amritanandamayiji. Perhaps no occasion is better than this to talk about transforming India into a developed nation, for such an important gathering, for the future course of action.

The Goal and the Second Vision

Recently, I had occasion to present to Amma the vision of Developed India at her place in Kollam. I presented the five core areas needing integrated action namely: Agriculture and Food Processing, Education and Health care, Information and Communication Technology, Infrastructure and self-reliance in critical technologies. Later I explained to her the village development strategies of Providing Urban facilities in Rural Areas (PURA) consisting of four connectivities: physical, electronic, knowledge and economic connectivity to enhance the prosperity of clusters of villages in the rural areas. Amma listened patiently and when I finished, turned to me with a smile and told me that something basic was missing. She went on to explain the rich culture and civilisational heritage of thousands of years that our country is proud of; the traditional bonds in a well-knit family system, where love, affection, mutual help and service are the prevailing emotions.Hence the development effort in the rural area has to have a focus on the spiritual way of life. Amma reiterated this when she visited Rashtrapati Bhavan a few months ago.

Hence, we in India need to evolve a second vision to bring about realistic development to our nation by the year 2020. As we formulate joint missions, strategies and methodologies to make this vision a reality, I invite the great Indian family to participate in this adventure of development.

Economic Scenario

Let us begin by first examining India's economic situation relative to other great powers of the world. We notice here that in the last decade India's rate of growth has been significantly high coinciding as it did with economic liberalization. What is significant is that our rate of growth is much higher than that of many other countries.

While India is moving ahead faster but in terms of absolute gross domestic product, among China, USA, Germany and Japan, America is pre-eminent in terms of wealth and India is yet to catch up. I am sure it is not our aim to have the fantasy that we should catch up and overtake America within the next decade or so. What we need to do is to take responsibility for our own well being and develop our society consistent with our heritage and sense of value and capability. That does not mean that we will continue to accept the conditions of poverty that is prevailing, or the poor services in vital areas or the unclean and degraded environment. We need to aim very high and work for it.

Another economic indicator is Gross Domestic product per capita. Compared to China, our GDP per capita is lower. Major reasons for this are China started development process at least a decade earlier and their investment was much higher. This should be a concern for us because nearly 70% of our population lives in about 580,000 villages spread out all over the country and the benefits of economic growth have been felt in urban areas to a good extent, but in rural areas productivity is very low, thus economic conditions need improvement. We should aim at the same level of prosperity, facility and infrastructure in the rural areas still keeping the advantage of the purer environment of the rural areas.

Therefore, our basic strategy for social and economic transformation of India towards its vision as developed society by 2020, would be a strong focus on providing urban amenities in rural areas in a most creative and cost effective manner. This is the challenge ahead of the country and this is where I expect the great Indian family not only within the border of India but also spread all over the world to share their knowledge, expertise, business acumen and management skills to start a well synchronised economic revolution through well conceived missions, strategies, goals and policies.

What is important for us now is to identify the fundamental sectoral contributors to GDP of different countries. By this study we may indeed get an understanding as to how more advanced countries have transformed themselves to an era of prosperity and strength. It would be seen that in the most prosperous of these nations such as the USA, Germany and Japan, the greatest contributors to national wealth is the service sector and manufacturing. However, in the ancient civilizations like China and India, feeding and clothing the vast population shifts wealth generated by agriculture to over 10 to 20 times that of the advanced countries. While agriculture is important, its value creation has limitations. India's consumption of food would have to double (400 million tons) by 2020, whereas the land availability for cultivation would further reduce. It means with lesser area, with lesser water India has to double the production only by technology and farm management. It is so with manufacturing, though it can absorb more people in productive jobs than what a productive agricultural sector can do.

Changing Pattern of GDP and Employment

Fundamentally our economic growth strategy would be to enhance wealth generation from the services sector. Our vision for 2020 has set a target for a service sector contribution to be 64 % of the GDP whereas in 1980, it was in the region of 36%. We have crossed the 50 percentage mark for the service sector. While this is happening, the contribution of agriculture is gradually going down. In order to effectively distribute the agricultural produce and make optimal use of them we need to have high quality expertise in food processing and supply chain management. It will ensure a balanced contribution to the GDP from the agricultural sector including food processing sector which will reach a value of 12% by the year 2020. Similarly the contribution of manufacturing sector i.e industries has to further increase.

Societal Transformation

Employment-wise the challenge before us is to re-distribute population in the rural areas apart from agriculture to other areas of manufacturing and service sectors. So how to bring about this change? The key is to take manufacturing and services to the rural areas of the country.

That is why it can be seen that economic growth for India is fundamentally tied to societal transformation in the knowledge products and service sector. Of course this in turn strengthens agriculture and manufacturing. Our movement towards Developed India 2020 is to generate revenue not only from raw material, agricultural and industrial products which are the hallmarks of an agricultural society, and more recently an industrial society. From here we have to move upwards to an information and knowledge society involving explicit knowledge through knowledge intensive products and have manufacturing sector and high value agriculture based on new knowledge and skill tasks.

The key here is that all developmental actions have to be activated in 580,000 villages which have missed both the industrial revolution and information technology revolution and in fact even the First Green Revolution in many of the states. How do we together go about to achieve this?

The transformation of our rural areas to a knowledge society is therefore our key and rapid growth. In such growth, our large population would itself turn out to be a competitive advantage for India by generating wealth. Such a process of using one billion people has a multiplier effect. The population is then not a problem being in the denominator and becomes a multiplier factor leading to a larger GDP for the country as a whole. The knowledge society which we look for is created through wealth generation and a societal transformation.

You can see here that the first priority for societal transformation of India is an accelerated rural economic development. Today we shall discuss a creative model how we might together go about with your close and active participation as major stakeholders in this process of societal transformation to a developed India by the year 2020.

Such a societal transformation would have to be based on information technologies applied to tele-education, tele-medicine, e-governance and e-commerce. Of course the physical connectivity is also a vital element as physical goods and people have to move. Information and communication technology have to be widely deployed in our transformation strategy along with newer technologies like Bio-technology, Advance materials in addition to new approaches of clean technologies. As a matter of fact, knowledge based products are slated to generate 80 billion dollars of wealth by 2010 in India.

River Networking: Challenges

Today, with a global population of 6 billion at least 3 billion have access to limited or perhaps the abundant supply of water. But by 2025, with a world population of 8 billion it is painful for us to come to know that only one billion would have similar access to fresh water. The population not having access to safe water would increase over a next two decade from one billion to two billion. Indeed due to lack of water, the lack of sanitation which affects two billion people today will affect Five billion in next two decades.

There are globally a few solutions to this problem of water shortage facing all humanity. If together, the global Indian family able to find a solution, we would indeed be making a great contribution to the welfare of all the humanity.

However, let us start near to go far. Firstly, by redistributing water. We have already started this in a small way through widespread promotion of rain water harvesting in both urban and rural areas including networking of rivers as a major provision.

As you are aware, a Task Force has been constituted by the government for studying and establishing the feasibility of Interlinking of Rivers for an equitable distribution of water from surplus river basin to another costing around Rs.560, 000 crores. In addition to the above, we need to put a stop to large scale wastage of water by water recycling technologies in rural and urban areas. Interlinking of rivers will give us a navigable water way, as a byproduct which will augment our road, rail and airways.

Like redistribution of river water, another regional solution but in coastal areas, would be to create new, perennial sources of fresh water by sea water desalination. In all these regional solutions the lead taken by India would become the role model for the other countries to follow. In addition to this we have to economise the use of water and recycle the same after use.

Bio-diversity: Tool for Economic Development

In the rural transformation which is a key foundation for the societal transformation, India would have to draw on rich resources of biodiversity. As technology gets upgraded and applied, India's biodiversity would move into a region of high value addition.

India's march towards prosperity and happiness would essentially be based on rural prosperity. The hallmarks of rural prosperity are productive employment of people and wealth generation. These will in turn lead to more of people and cultural and social activities leading to a major social transformation

Development Plan for Rural Economic Transformation

Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) is essentially conceived around four types of connectivities, with the aim to speed up the process of obtaining total rural prosperity.

The first of these connectivities is Physical Connectivity for movement of people and goods, access to schools health centers and markets. In our rural areas today, there are inadequate roads, rail and public infrastructure. With more than 580,000 villages in India the means to physical connectivity is to view these villages in clusters from 10 upwards.

This cluster of village would be provided physical connectivity by a ring road. Low cost buses preferably driven by batteries energised by renewable energy. This cluster of village would be provided physical connectivity by a ring road. Low cost buses preferably driven by batteries energised by renewable energy sources and powered by high efficiency engine would be operated almost throughout the day as shuttle services moving people and goods from village to village and village to school, health center, fuelling stations, farming areas, warehouses, agro industries and other commercial centres.

Thus it would be seen that the heart of the PURA concept is Physical Connectivity of 10 or more villages by a ring road with a population of around 50,000. Connectivity thereafter to a rail network and to a nearest city beyond this village cluster would take off from the ring road. All these roads or links will be of high quality and high speed, as time is valuable.

This is potentially a cost effective solution for activating the schools, health centers, village markets, warehouses and commercial centres that would serve the population of the entire cluster, thus resulting in economies of scale. Also these clusters will become an excellent investment destination because the transactional costs will be much lower than in the metropolis. In addition, quality of life will be improved.

Similarly PURA would be provided with Electronic Connectivity. The system oriented approach for the village cluster would require to introduce tele-education for farmers and villagers, village internet kiosks, public call offices, tele-medicine, e-market, e-governance, e-commerce and so on. Thus the revolution in information technology supported by space based technology would create the needed societal transformation at the gross roots of the country. It also will provide the opportunity for the villagers to collectively locate call centres, Business processing outsourcing and software development centres to use world out sourcing market. Thus PURA provides a seamless connection and movement of molecules (people), atoms (material) and electron (knowledge).

It would be seen therefore that the triad of physical, electronic and knowledge connectivity brings forth the Economic Connectivity.

Spiritual Connectivity and Leadership

We have not forgotten what Amma had said and we have brought in the unique concept of Spiritual Connectivity while suggesting PURA implementation strategies and management structures.

After Amma talked to me about the spiritual connectivity, I have realized as scientist the information can flow not only as molecules, atoms and electrons but also through electromagnetic wave and radiation and that is spirituality.

Structure defends strategy as form defends functions. I am suggesting today a management system for each PURA, or perhaps a set of PURAs, a Governing Council, Programme Councils and Project Councils. This is the system for project management where multiple institutions are required to work together at policy, programme and task levels. Empowerment is achieved by vertical decentralization integrated to the tasks with horizontal coordination. India has a wealth of such experience in setting up an implementing high technology projects with such management structures.

This has the advantage of being an intrinsically democratic system of functioning at the institutional level and calls for participation of the widest cross-section of users, producers, developers, and stakeholders including Government. Our villages with their ancient system of panchayats and recent system of zilla parishads, would readily and quickly adapt the programme management style of functioning which would then make a major contribution to societal transformation. However we have to enter into new ways of life preserving our intrinsic human values which are the hallmark of our civilization.

India has a unique capability to successfully implement the 1000s of man year project particularly denied or challenged by developed nation. Now it is time for us to take up such a challenge to fight against poverty.

The real societal transformation which we have to expect now is the use of such integrated programme management experience for village clusters in PURA. Depending on the extent of the stake the Governing Council of the rural development agency / Corporation would be led by either the private sector or the public sector. Once PURA is operational it is envisaged a new entrepreneurial enterprise will emerge. This entrepreneurship may emerge in any part of the country in the rural areas. This enterprise finally will have to be economically viable. But the methods of working should ensure the maximum fund goes for the actual development task reducing the overheads.

Clearly the choice of the leaders for these various councils would have to be made from enlightened citizens and people capable of giving moral as well as business leadership. This is where the concept of spiritual connectivity is seen as the foundation which bonds all the other four connectivities.

We should choose the right enlightened citizens for providing moral leadership for those PURAs in India which would be initiated and sustained by the global Indian community.

While focusing on PURA and all round societal transformation in this vast country of over one billion human beings, we have to take into account the march of technology which have an impact not only on the PURA System but also on overall industrial growth in a very big way.

Integrated Strengths

Thus, our movement towards a prosperous, happy and peaceful India would be based on our core strengths which include natural resources and human resources. We have to couple them together through innovative management structures and practices and technology and formulate new missions such as PURA, networking of rivers, large scale use of solar energies for seawater desalination, education as a fundamental right and so on. In such a manner we do not overlook the critical impact of the societal transformation and wealth generation on defence and internal security.

In addition there is a need for moral leadership and spiritual connectivity. As we move towards a developed India with economic strength, competitiveness, knowledge power and technology, productivity needs, effective governance and empowered management we also need invisible leadership. In the new integrated management structure we need leaders whose leadership styles which move from commander to coach, manager to mentor, from director to delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitates self respect.

Conclusion

May I urge you; the global Indian family of talented entrepreneurs to participate in this movement towards developed India with your knowledge and experience. Transforming India into a developed nation requires integrated actions in the following areas. (1) Agriculture and food processing (2) Reliable and quality electric power for all parts of the country. (3) Education and Healthcare (4) Information Technology and (5) Self-reliance in Critical technologies. Other areas like Advanced Sensors and Materials would also need a thrust. These five areas are closely inter-related and lead to food, economic, national security and employment generation. PURA is one of the mechanisms which will be utilized for transforming our villages into a productive economic zone. Each PURA might call for an average investment of Rs.100 crores (or about $20 million). 5000 PURAs have already been announced by the Govt. of India. The first PURA Complex fully funded by the Govt. of India will commence in ORISSA in November 2003.

Development is dynamic; it is a vibrant continuum; it is a multi-faceted phenomenon. It is essential to grasp the real concept of development to ensure holistic growth and full realization of goals. The resource management and political vision have to be integrated. India needs partners for realization of this Vision through their knowledge, experience and other elements of capability.

As I mentioned earlier, India must assume the responsibility for its own well being. We cannot expect other countries beset with their own problems to rush to our rescue for energy security as we enter an era of deficiency of oil and natural gases as well as fresh drinking water. The networking of rivers, manufacturing and integrated actions as discussed have to be the focus.

While today we have discussed vision, missions or programmes, projects and integrated management structures and leadership styles needed to make implementation effective, we have to go forward and develop goals and policies for sustainable, equitable and democratic growth. I look forward to your suggestions as to what effective mechanisms we have to set up to realize the development goal of India 2020.

This is about networking of a billion people, networking of thoughts and deeds towards a common goal for making India a developed country. There must be broad participation from all sections of Indian life. This change management in leadership style, goals and policies, rules and procedures is a challenge, and has to be action oriented.