Kalam146;s PURA plan gets a push

Panel wants PURA clusters for each district, recommends hiking alloted amount from Rs 1,800 cr to Rs 5,000 cr

President A P J Abdul Kalam8217;s dream plan for taking development to the villages 8212;Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas, or PURA 8212; has moved one more step ahead with a committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary approving its formalisation in principle.

Besides, the committee, which met last week, has recommended that the Union Ministry for Rural Development, the key implementer of the project, increase the number of PURA village clusters to be taken up during the Eleventh Plan period from 33 to around 1,000, allowing for two or three such clusters in each district.

It has also given PURA more financial steam, raising the expense estimate for the plan period from Rs 1,800 crore to about Rs 5,000 crore.

The proposal with changes will go to the Centre8217;s expense 038; finance committee. If approved, a detailed draft will be sent to the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs for a final decision before the Eleventh Plan period starts in 2007.

The Union Ministry of Rural Development had initially allocated Rs 10 crore each for pilot schemes under PURA during 2005-06 and 2006-07. It was to take up 33 PURA clusters during the Eleventh Five Year Plan, with each cluster getting maximum central government assistance of Rs 50 crore for the plan period.

The committee of secretaries from all ministries that will be involved directly or indirectly in implementing PURA, studied this strategy and suggested changes to give it more depth.

Under PURA, President Kalam envisages self-sustaining rural clusters well-connected by roads and fibre-optic cables for high-bandwidth telecommunication. PURA aims to provide 8220;knowledge connectivity8221; through education and vocational and entrepreneurial training for farmers, craftsmen, and others. It also aims to improve health and sanitation facilities in these village clusters.

Story continues below this ad

Kalam has spoken enthusiastically about the concept at several forums and sees it as an engine to take make India a developed country by 2020. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said in his Independence Day speech of 2003 that the Centre was committed to implementing it.

The Union Ministry for Rural Development had planned for PURA to be implemented in clusters of 10-15 villages with a total population of about 1 lakh. Covering all villages in the country will require some 7,000 such clusters.

The ministry wanted each cluster to be run by an organization that could be a corporate body, a cooperative society, an NGO, an academic institution, a panchayati raj institution, or a public-private partnership agency. Government assistance and finance would be provided only after the organisation submits a well-though-out project for co-ordinated development of the cluster.

Among the changes suggested by the committee was that these clusters be identified and developed by the district rural development agencies, and that all existing rural development schemes be dovetailed in line with the PURA concept. After this, shortfalls, if any, would be made up with Central assistance.

Story continues below this ad

Currently there are seven pilot PURA projects running with central assistance in seven different states. These pilot schemes will either be deemed completed or merged with the new PURA clusters from the beginning of Eleventh Plan period. What is interesting is that these pilot projects have been running only for two years and not all the parameters required to make a complete assessment for the efficacy of PURA corporations could be completed during these two years.