Valedictory Address at the National Food Security Summit

PURA in Action

I am delighted to participate in the Valedictory function of the National Food Security Summit which is aiming to achieve the national goal of hunger free India by 15th August 2007. I greet the scientists, technologists, policy makers, distinguished guests and all those including our farming community who are associated with this noble task of providing food security to the billion people.

I am very happy to attend the Food Security Summit organized by M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation. Our country had demonstrated that Food security is the foundation of our economic security and economic security leads to national security and other forms of social security like health security and education and employment opportunity. I would like to narrate two incidents which happened a few years back. In one case, I was involved directly in the development of technology, in the other I was in the government policy making and management. One was with the operationalization of AGNI, the long range missile and the second was the five consecutive nuclear tests which took place in Pokhran on May 11, 1998. The combination of these two events led India to declare itself as a Nuclear weapon state. Within three days of our declaration, all the developed countries, except one or two, clamped on India both technological and economical sanctions. This led to the suspension of contracts and agreements in which both the countries were working together, such as the LCA contract.

The World Bank economic loans were kept in abeyance. The industries were denied components and devices including computers systems, softwares, its patches and its upgrades. Number of Indian companies who were declared as entities, could not import even ordinary maintenance items for the equipments which had been imported before. For example, the five axis CNC Machine was denied even for civil applications. In this situation, I would like to share with our youth, how India came out of the chaos created by the developed world. The three strengths, namely technological strength, leadership strength and concerted effort made by the Indians got us out of trouble. How this was possible? Let us see the major elements.

Firstly, we had sufficient food stocks in our country and our production capacity was excellent. Secondly, our information and communication technology area had shown excellent performance even in a denied market. Thirdly, our NRIs came to our rescue by over subscribing to the Resurgent India Bond (RIB) scheme launched by State Bank of India. Above all the leadership in India, both ruling parties and opposition parties defended India?s external policies and stood as a rock for country?s national interests. Therefore we came out successful. Today, not only the nation has become stronger in national security areas, due to our standing firm on our principles and ideals of our nation, we have also become economically stronger. This incident demonstrates our spirit of ?We can do it? resulting in the ascent phase of our economic prosperity being experienced today. I have chosen my theme as ?PURA IN ACTION?.

Vision 2020: Developed India as a Mission

As you are aware we have in our nation 260 million people living below the poverty line. The nation has to lift them up. Today the GDP growth rate is about 6%; it has to be lifted up to 10% and to be sustained for several years. Then it is possible for India to get developed economically and the billion people will feel the prosperity of the nation. The roadmap involves integrated action on the following five areas:

(1) Agriculture and food processing - we have to place a target of 360 million tonnes of food and agricultural production. Other areas of agriculture and agro food processing would bring prosperity to rural people and speed up economic growth. (2) Reliable and quality electric power for all parts of the country. (3) Education and healthcare - we have seen, based on experience, education and healthcare are inter related. (4) Information communication technology - this is one of our core competencies. We believe this area can be used to promote education in remote areas and also to create national wealth. (5) Strategic sectors - this area, fortunately, witnessed growth in nuclear technology, space technology and defence technology.

These areas have been converted into missions such as: Networking of Rivers, availability of high quality uninterrupted power, Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas (PURA), Second Green Revolution, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) transforming into knowledge products and Tourism. These specific integrated missions sector-wise will take the country forward on the path to self-sustaining development. These missions will provide the thrust for the realization of developed India in a time bound manner. They will also provide large-scale employment opportunities for the youth through creation of various types of industries and enhancement of the national infrastructure. Many young persons with professional education can become entrepreneurs themselves, thus contributing to economic growth and creation of new avenues of employment.

Food Security

Food security can be studied from three different view points. First, availability of food, which depends upon production and distribution; second access to food that is guided by purchasing power; and third food absorption. Food absorption implies being able to assimilate the food consumed in order to live a healthy and long life. This can come about with good sanitation facilities and better health care infrastructure. For enhanced production and distribution, we have to immediately launch the second green revolution.

Agriculture and agro food processing

India has to now embark upon the Second Green Revolution which will enable it to further increase its productivity and diversity in the agricultural sector. The second green revolution will have the farmers in focus, farming technology as the friend, food processing and marketing as partners and the consumers as the angels to be satisfied. From now on to 2020, India would have to gradually increase the production to around 400 million tonnes of grains. The increase in the production will have to be done under the reduced availability of land from 170 million hectares to 100 million hectares with reduced water availability. We should also learn to diversify to meet specific consumer preferences, export markets and also in the interest of ecological balance. This is to be achieved through information access to all stakeholders and not with central controls or restriction of movements of agro products.

The challenges for the scientists and technologies would be in the areas of development of seeds that would ensure good yield even under constraints of water and land with ecologically balanced farming. The challenges for the scientist is indeed a knowledge graduation from characterization of soil to the matching of the seed with the composition of the fertilizer, water management and evolving new pre-harvesting techniques for such conditions. The domain of farming would enlarge from grain production to food processing and marketing. Newer forms of co-operative entities are required to be established for ensuring maximum benefit to the farmers. E-marketing concepts may also be put into practice to provide farmers choices in selling. Some of the areas which need focus are: soil upgradation, dry land agriculture, temperature and salinity resistant seeds and minimum water cultivation. There have been successful experiments carried out by TIFAC team in Bihar, where per hectare output of wheat has been tripled by farmers in collaboration with agricultural scientists through scientific methods. Such experiments can be replicated in many parts of our country, carefully tailored to local conditions. The earnings of the participating farmers have remarkably improved. This is a crucial socio-economic need. Access to food will need enhancement of purchasing power of the rural and urban population. This can only come out of employment generation through entrepreneurship and through increase in the incomes of existing farmers by techniques adopted by the TIFAC team briefly mentioned above.

Employment Generation through entrepreneurship

There has been substantial growth in our higher educational system and we are generating over 3 million graduates every year. However our employment generation system is not in a position to absorb the graduates passing out from the universities leading to increase in educated unemployed, year after year. There is a large mismatch between the skills required for the modern economy and the education imparted to most of these students. This situation will lead to instability in the social structure. We need higher education focused on and oriented towards employment opportunities. A multi pronged strategy is needed to make education more attractive and simultaneously create employment potential ? how do we do that?

Firstly, the educational system should highlight the importance of entrepreneurship and prepare the students right from the college education to get oriented towards setting up of the enterprises which will provide them creativity, freedom and ability to generate wealth. Diversity of skills and perseverance in work makes an entrepreneur. It should be taught to all the students. In addition, college syllabi even for arts, science, and commerce courses should include topics and practicals where such entrepreneurship is possible. Secondly, the banking system should provide venture capital right from every village level to the prospective entrepreneurs for undertaking new enterprises. Banks have to be proactive to support the innovative products for enabling wealth generation by young entrepreneurs by setting aside the ?conventional tangible asset syndrome?. Definitely this involves certain amount of calculated risks which can be eliminated by making an analysis of successful venture capital enterprises. Thirdly, there has to be an economic pull for human resources; for example generation of marketable products and enhancement of purchasing power among the people. This can come through the implementation of mega programmes such as PURA, Interlinking of Rivers, Infrastructural missions, Power missions and Tourism. Also genuine and competitive border trade can increase if we have a friendly border in all sectors.

The educational institutions, Government and the private enterprises should become facilitators for creating this entrepreneurship scheme through the support of the banking system and the marketing system. This is one way of reducing the employment gap leading to upliftment of the 260 million people living below the poverty line.

PURA Concept

The cabinet in its meeting on 20-January-2004, has accorded in principle approval for execution of PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) within the existing gross budgetary support for bridging the rural urban divide and achieving balanced socio-economic development. This scheme is proposed to be implemented in 4130 rural clusters across the country in the next five years. The north eastern states, other special category states and backward areas, identified by the planning commission would get priority under the scheme.

Economic Connectivity for PURA

Providing Urban facilities in Rural Areas (PURA) consisting of four connectivities: physical, electronic, knowledge and there by leading to economic connectivity to enhance the prosperity of clusters of villages in the rural areas. The economic connectivity will generate a market and the production establishments for servicing the market. The PURA has all the dimensions to become a business enterprise, which has global dimensions but operating in every nook and corner of our country. The PURA entrepreneur has to have the skill for evolving a business plan with banks and also create infrastructural support such as educational institutions, health centres and small scale industries, transportation services, tele-education, tele-medicine, e-governance services in the region integrating with the governmental rural development schemes such as road, communication and transport and also with national and global markets to sell the products and services.

PURA Model

Depending upon the region and the state of present development PURA can be classified in three different categories, namely Type A, Type B, Type C ? PURA Clusters. The characteristics features of these types are given below:

For example, Type A Cluster is sitituated closer to an urban area and having minimal road connectivity, limited infrastructure, limited support ? school, primary health centre. Type B Cluster is situated Closer to urban area but has sparsely spread infrastructure and no connectivity, Type C Cluster located far interior with no infrastructure, no connectivity and no basic amenities.

Criteria for PURA Clusters

Type A Cluster may be with the Population of 30,000 to 1,00,000 in about 10 to 15 villages with adequate land for 4 lane circular road, with out having Canals, Rail and Power line obstacles, ensuring minimum displacement of people, and preferably falls within the district jurisdiction. Similar criteria need to be worked out for B and C clusters. A typical PURA Cluster may have the following specifications:

PURA Enterprise

The small and medium industry enterprises in India have experience in managing the small and medium scale industries of different types in various regions. This sector is widespread in the country and is a promising candidate for taking the leadership and managing the PURA complexes in an integrated way. Also major businesses in India with wide spread rural services have an experience of maintaining large rural-urban networks. PURA enterprises can undertake management of schools, health care units, vocational training centres, chilling plants, silos and building a market, building of local industrial / ICT parks, tourism services, banking system and the regional business or industrial units. A new management style has to emerge for managing such type of PURA enterprises. This new PURA enterprise needs partnership from the bank, educational institutions, Government and the private entrepreneurs. The management system should have the flexibility to be competitive and the country has to experiment several models depending on local needs.

Structural Support for PURA

Leading industrial houses should identifiy the PURA complexes in the areas in their vicinities and adopt them right now, so that they can be developed in an integrated way. They should create a holistic plan of products and services, skills and entrepreneurship. Determination of products and services should be done on the basis of the core strength of the region and the availability of raw materials and infrastructure as well as comparative advantages. Once the product is determined it will also involve infusion of new technologies for making it attractive for both national and international market and also productivity enhancement. After establishing the process and methods a vocational training package needs to be established for improving the skill sets of the local population. Of course some persons may also be brought from other parts of India as it is necessary to have knowledge-skill sharing to increase growth. This is also the time for developing entrepreneurs with leadership qualities who will then create and nurture the enterprise. The selection of entrepreneurs should be preferably done from the higher educational institutions in the region, but not necessarily limited to as a rule. This will enable creation of the village level industries simultaneously with the establishment of connectivities in the region.

PURA Funding

Each PURA depending upon the region will cost between Rs.100-200 crores. After initial short term employment during construction etc., we may have to plan for initiating actions for providing regular employment opportunities for 3000 employees. If the industrial / ICT parks are marketed well, they can generate employment opportunities in service and support sector for about 10000 people. This is one way of reducing the employment gap leading to upliftment of the 260 million people living below the poverty line and also to provide better jobs for many millions who are technically above poverty line, but poor by many other standards.

In brief, we should generate the business plan for PURA and evolve methodologies for creating a model that would:

? create a data base of core competencies and comparative advantages in the chosen region.

? estimate the cost of implementing PURA

? measures of quantitatively establishing the economic prosperity of people before and after PURA is implemented

? economic returns and self sustainability

? marketing methods for making the PURA self-sustaining and to attract investments

? identify key business persons, public persons and others who can manage PURA successfully and also bring in investments.

I am sure many among you can develop such a business plan that will attract business enterprises towards investing in PURA and make PURA a socially relevant and economically feasible enterprise.

Implementation plan for PURA

The PURA implementation can be effectively done through establishment of an APEX body chaired by top management of the nation. The overall PURA scheme will function under this Apex body which will provide policy guidelines for promoting PURA in different regions. Five regional PURA Corporations may be formed which will execute the PURA in that regions such as North, East, West, South and Central regions with the empowered Chairman. Each PURA will have an empowered Mission Director, deriving powers from the Regional corporations. Each PURA can have the following models: Solely run by Government, Run by Joint Venture, Run by Industry, Run by financial institution, Run by Small scale industries, and Collaborative venture of all these combinations and also with Educational institutions and R&D Organisation for providing Knowledge connectivity to the farmers, villagers and entrepreneurs. But the key is to have professional and committed management structure with flexibility and powers at the local operating levels.

The funding can come from the government, through the existing budgetary support, provided to ministry of rural development through various schemes, special allotments to the ministry for execution of certain PURAs, NGOs, NRIs keen to implement the PURA in certain regions, business houses, banking and financial institutions. The execution status of PURA will be reviewed by the regional corporations every six months and by the APEX board once in a year. Based on the review midcourse corrections and policy directions will be provided for facilitating smooth execution of individual PURA missions. The mission directors will remain with the PURA till its completion and profitable performance. There could be conferences organized to share the experiences of different PURAs being executed in a region.

The prosperity index of the PURA will be governed by contributions to GDP, increase in income level, and reduction in illiteracy, availability of food at affordable prices, availability of electricity, quality water, sanitation facilities and also livable habitat. This will be measured periodically and submitted to the APEX body for information and guidance.

Conclusion

Total number of PURAs in the country could be in the range of seven thousand. The mission is a complex activity needing participation of all the citizens of the nation and creative contribution from entrepreneurs, educationists, scientists and technologists, sociologists, industrialists and economists. PURA in action requires a mission mode business like management, operation and people?s participation from the levels of the villages. Our study indicates that in southern parts of the country and Gujarat, private institutions and state governments are executing certain components of PURA such as health care and education. They are also engaged in agro processing sector and employment generation. It is important to note that PURA business plan cannot be universal to be determined at the central level. It has to be customized and located according to region, State, terrain and also structured to meet the needs of the values, culture and aspirations of the local people. The choice of leadership in managing the PURA, participation of the financial institutions and the evolution of market are region specific. It should be run by persons having a high level of integrity and commitment to people of the location. The evolution of PURA project is indeed a challenging task and is the business of progressive entrepreneurs. PURA in action presents the real mission, task, knowledge empowerment, economic connectivity, marketing aspects, empowered management structure with fund and funding methodologies. I am sure the recommendations given in the ?Atlas of the Sustainability of Food Security 2004? will assist the PURA missions.

I wish the food security summit success in all its missions.