Address at the Inauguration Ofindia Country-level Development Marketplace

Dynamics of Village development

I am delighted to participate in the inauguration of India Country-level Development Marketplace organized by the World Bank. My interest to participate, in this meet arises from the focus of the programme towards sustainable rural development in India.

What am I doing in this function organized by the World Bank? That too on a beautiful Monday evening. I am here to share with you an important message. A message that will make the partnership between the World Bank and countries like India lead to a path of win-win relationship. While we all appreciate your efforts of selecting and funding 20 innovative projects, lets us spend a minute to see how we can benefit from the experience. The experiences of such small but important projects can be integrated and scaled up, so that it will give certain inputs to the overall mission of India as presented in my recent parliament address to bring prosperity to the rural India. This definitely has a tremendous scope for the World Bank to become a partner in this national endeavour. There is an old Indian saying that ?Only a burning candle can light another?, Let the candle of knowledge that you light from your experience here, be propagated to the rest of the needy world, so that we would soon witness, a prosperous borderless planet.

World Bank has taken an important initiative in calling for proposals from over 1500 Non Government Organisations in India for rural development programmes, which I am sure will have an integrating effort which may pave the way in choices of multiple routes towards rural development. I congratulate the organizers for promoting this programme. My greetings to all the participants who have submitted the proposals, award winners, juries, experts and distinguished guests.

When I was going through the 50 short-listed proposals, I found that each one of these tiny but important projects addresses a specific issue and these are widely spread across the nation. If the social entrepreneurs with the participation of panchayat and local administration successfully demonstrate these projects then they have the potential of being assembled as components of a holistic project in a village cluster.

The World Bank efforts of inviting the proposals, systematic screening and selection through eminent juries, are noteworthy. The twenty selected proposals by the World Bank will complement the integrated rural development programme of the government. Hopefully these twenty projects may turn out to be demonstrative of innovative ideas, which can be replicated elsewhere.

Now I would like to share with you some recent case studies to illustrate how these individual sectoral innovations could lead to an integrated rural development model.

Periyar PURA: Recently I had visited Periyar Maniammai College of Technology for women and inaugurated a project called PURA (Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas) Complex. Over 60 villages near Vallam, Thanjavur district of Tamilnadu, have been transformed as a PURA Cluster. It has a ring road and interconnecting roads covering major villages along with bus transport system. They have provided internet kiosks through wireless connectivity for many of the villages. Periyar Maniammai hospitals and family welfare centres along with the mobile cancer diagnostic clinic provides health care to the population of the rural complex. Campus provides education from Kindergarten to Post graduation. In addition, they are providing knowledge connectivity through awareness and training programmes for use of organic manure (vermi compost), Yoga and Siddha-based formulations, renewable energy, rain water harvesting and general health. Women are empowered through Self-Help Groups, entrepreneurship development programmes including training programmes for skill development and micro business activities. Organizers of Periyar PURA have established so far 525 self-reliant Self Help Groups, which provide employment for 8000 rural women through products for which technologies have been transferred. They are self-sufficient in energy through solar power and bio-mass gasifier plants. Towards economic development they have integrated farms, energy plantation, aquaculture, livestock farms and dry land horticulture. They have innovative water management schemes for irrigation. Provision of training to the village community in printing technologies, refrigeration & air conditioning, hardware training, Desk Top Publishing (DTP), plumbing, electrical wiring, welding/fabrication, bakery and construction technology has created job opportunities to the villagers. The members of the villages are fruitfully employed and they are producing value added products. A transformation has taken place keeping our civilizational heritage intact and converted the rural settings into a livable habitat. I have witnessed the progress of this project.

BAIF MODEL: BAIF (Bharat Agro Industries Foundation, Pune) has organized a tribal rehabilitation programme for sustainable livelihood. The tribal population in Vansda (Navsari district) and Dharampur (Valsad district) blocks of Gujarat were migrating to nearby cities with their families in search of wages as their land holdings were very small and the crop productivity was low. Migration deprived the children of educational and health facilities, while both men and women took to drinking of alcohol. These families were motivated to stay back on their own lands and take up cultivation of fruit bearing trees as a measure of generating gainful employment. BAIF provided wages to the families in the formative stages for working on their own lands, as they had no other source of income. They were enabled to grow good quality grafted plants of mango and cashew and also provided with manure and fertilizers. In return, BAIF took a commitment from the families that they would work hard and abstain from alcohol and other addictions.

Simultaneously, the men and women were organized into small Self Help Groups to meet every week and discuss various actions to be initiated under this programme. Watershed development programme was introduced to harvest the rainwater near the fruit gardens (known as Wadi in Gujarat) for providing support irrigation. As sophisticated drip irrigation system was not manageable due to lack of electricity and high cost, pitcher irrigation was promoted. After establishing the fruit trees, the farmers were advised to cultivate various food crops. As the fruit trees started yielding after 3-4 years, other income generation activities such as establishment of fruit nursery, cultivation of vegetables and herbal medicines, sericulture, mushroom production, masonry and carpentry were promoted to generate additional income. Thus, they attained food security right from the first year while the trees started growing and bearing fruits from the third or fourth year, generating a surplus of Rs. 20,000-25,000 per family.

It is the tribal women who were more interested in attending to the field activities and nurturing the orchards. Drudgery reduction and health care were also promoted and the women were able to utilize the time saved for productive work. Today, they have formulated their own cooperatives for processing and marketing of their cashew and mango products and for this advance facility centers have been established for each zone.

This programme has benefited over 50,000 tribal families in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Rajasthan. As the orchard is able to give them substantial income, they have stopped migrating to the cities. These tribals who have established fruit orchards on their degraded lands have not only come out of poverty, but also protected the neighbouring forest area and demonstrated how poverty eradication can be linked with eco-system improvement. Today, this programme has emerged as a unique tribal development model in the country.

BAIF is also engaged in livestock development for promoting animal husbandry on a massive scale covering over 20,000 villages in 9 States. Over the last 35 years, they have helped over 7-8 lakh families to come out of poverty. Under this programme, BAIF provides breeding and advisory services to produce superior quality cattle. A family maintaining 2-3 crossbred cows, earns Rs.18, 000-20,000 per year. This is the result of use of appropriate technologies and ambient management methods.

Project Siruthuli:

This is an initiative started by Coimbatoreans for Coimbatoreans. 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 five of the nine primary 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 by the end of 2005. 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.

Synergy mission for environmental Upgradation: The status of environmental cleanliness is one of the indicators of the development of a nation. As a nation, we have to keep our environment clean and tidy including all our places of worship and rivers. I am delighted to learn the Kali Bein rivulet, the place where Gurunanak Dev is said to have received enlightenment and which had over the centuries turned literally into a sewage ridden, weed choked drain, is today flowing clean and proud, mainly due to the efforts of Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal in partnership with the Punjab State Government. From the discussions, I understand that he organized people?s participation in stopping the massive flow of sewage into the Bein and cleaned 160 km long polluted and choked rivulet within the last three and a half years by deploying on an average 3000 devotees per day of the Gurudwara who have become volunteer workers for the mission. Today one can feel the flow of fresh water in this rivulet released from the Tarkina Barrage by the government about a year ago. The revival of the rivulet has recharged the water table as the hand pumps that had became dry for the past 4 decades are now pumping out water. Baba with the volunteers, not only did the cleaning up operation by clearing Bein from the weeds and hyacinth, but also built bathing ghats at five places. He also built more than 100 km long kutcha road on the bank of the rivulet.

Elango's initiative:

Elango, a village Panchayat President, a Chemical Engineer, and a native of the village, pledged to develop Kuthampakkam. He decided to contribute for the village where he lived. In 1990, he gave up his job and started living in the village. Observing the poor living conditions of the people, Elango decided it was his first aim to retrieve people from illicit distillation activity. He then tried persuading them to take up alternative employment, planning some short term jobs for them, orientation programmes and a few more events, but all his efforts were unsuccessful. The people did not accept Elango, nor were they ready to recognize his efforts to improve their lives. All they wanted was a sustainable income. He came to the firm belief that organizing community employment for the people on a long-term basis was the only way to stop them from illicit distillation. He realized that neither preaching nor short-term benefits would attract them; only a steady income would. Elango was able to provide his villagers with sustainable employment through government schemes like the 'Namakku namae' project. "Under that project, he laid concrete roads with the members of village by dividing them into different groups and the project was handed over to them. One group bought material and another distributed it, while a third worked. Now the village has concrete roads for a stretch of more than four kms, without any compromise on quality. The project has not only provided alternative employment but also quality roads. Also about 900 families of Kuthampakkam under the low cost housing project have been transformed into an organized community with a harmonious eco-friendly lifestyle. Social tensions have disappeared. Every one in the village engages himself/herself in a constructive activity irrespective of age, gender or caste.

My experience

During my visits to various rural areas and interaction with people in different parts of the country, I come across a few unsung heroes appearing in the region who have done unique work for the village development. Some examples are agro forestry, self-help groups, and cultivation of bio-plants, increasing productivity of seed cotton, development of orchards, animal husbandry, tripling the yield of wheat and vermi-compost organic manure. A mechanism has to be evolved to spot the performance and build development around them. World bank in partnership with Indian agencies can facilitate a special project to conduct the survey of performers in different regions in the country and publish a directory. This information will be very useful to the Planning Commission, World Bank constituents, NGOs and State/Central government establishments.

Mission ahead of us

So far, I have discussed with you some of the successful rural development initiatives undertaken by the NGO and individuals, apart from the Central and state governments? rural development programmes. Now I would like to discuss what is needed at this juncture. Nearly 700 million people of India live in the rural areas in 600,000 villages. Rural prosperity depends upon building up both ?content? and ?connectivity? simultaneously. Connectivity of village complexes providing economic opportunities to all segments of people is an urgent need to empower the rural sector. The essential needs of the villages today are water, power, road, sanitation, healthcare, education, transportation, communication and other services needed for sustainable entrepreneurship and quality of life.

Essential Connectivities

The integrated methods, which will bring prosperity to rural India are: 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, vocational training for farmers, artisans and craftsmen and entrepreneurship programmes; and economic connectivity through starting of enterprises with the help of banks, micro credits and marketing the products.

Conclusion

The next two decades is a period of accelerated economic development for our country. Science and technology and economic planning has to contribute continuously for undertaking various missions. With these tasks before us, ?What can I do for the prosperity of 700 million people living in six hundred thousand villages??, should echo in the heart of every Indian scientist, technologist, economist and planners. And also the international organization definitely can use the experiences that will be gained from PURA, in other parts of the world since development is progressing in multiple ambient conditions. I am happy to see that the projects selected also address the connectivity dimensions such as rural finance, energy, communication, e-services etc. A large number of projects fall in the category of knowledge connectivity. It would be appropriate as a next step of development financing that the World Bank can become partner in enabling the NGOs and corporate sector for undertaking development of viable clusters of villages for their sustainable development in a big way. The outlay of this participative endeavour would involve 20 to 40 million dollars for each cluster. Such investment, besides providing urban amenities in rural areas, will also become a sustainable business proposition. World Bank is not only a bank dealing with money, but also a bank that has become a creator and guardian of Knowledge Capital. This knowledge capital, a concept of banking in knowledge is the most ideal path for the world that is entering into the knowledge era. I am sure that whatever the World Bank gains by the experiments in India, will become a model for other countries to follow. This will make both the Bank and India feel satisfied. The banking sector in India and the postal department have a very strong presence in the rural India. They should work closely with the World Bank to propagate and democratize the knowledge and engage themselves in funding rural projects that would act as catalysts to lift the rural poor to afford and get the urban amenities without having to migrate to the urban India. My sincere request to the World Bank and the organizers of this event is for them to invest more time and efforts in making sure that the knowledge that the banks have accumulated should reach every needy Indian, particularly those in the rural areas. The Rural India should go next time to the bank not to borrow money but to borrow knowledge.

My greetings to all World Bank authorities and all the participants and the finalists of the village development programme.