Prez's Speech at L N Mishra Univ. Convocation, Patna - Part 1

CONVOCATION ADDRESS LALIT NARAYAN MITHILA UNIVERSITY AND INAUGURATION OF THE WOMEN'S INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, DARBHANGA

30-12-2005 :
Darbhanga

Empower the Youth to become Entrepreneurs
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I am indeed delighted to participate in the annual Convocation of the Lalit
Narayan Mithila University and the Inauguration of the Women?s Institute
of Technology (WIT), Darbhanga. I congratulate the graduating students
for their academic excellence. My greetings to the Chancellor, Vice
Chancellor, Faculty Members, students and staff members of the
University for shaping the students for meeting the challenges in life.
During the last thirty three years this University has been meeting the
higher education needs of the districts of Darbhanga, Madhubani,
Samastipur and Begusarai. I would like to talk to you on the topic
"Empower the Youth to become Entrepreneurs". First let me talk about our
national mission.

Our National mission - challenges
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Our nation is going through a major challenge of uplifting of 260 million people who
are below the poverty line out of our billion population. Also we have
to give better life for many millions who are on the border line of
poverty or just above the poverty line. They need a decent habitat, they
need work with reasonable income, they need food, they need speedy
access to health care, and they need education and finally they need a
good life and hope for a better future. Our GDP is growing at more than
7% per annum on an average. Whereas, the economists suggest that to
uplift the people from below the poverty line, our economy has to grow
at the rate of 10% per annum consistently, for over a decade.


Integrated action:
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To meet the need of one billion people, we have
the mission of transforming India into a developed nation. We have
identified five areas where India has a core competence for integrated
action: (1) Agriculture and food processing, (2) Education and
Healthcare, (3) Reliable and Quality Electric power, Surface transport
and Infrastructure for all parts of the country, (4) Information and
Communication Technology (5) Strategic sectors. These five areas are
closely inter-related and if implemented in mission mode, will lead to
food, economic and national security of our country.

Engines for Growth:
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Emphasis should be on full utilization of natural and human
resources of the nation to meet the demands of the modern society. We
should also remember that about 50% of our population consists of young
people with aspirations for better living. Value addition in
Agriculture, Manufacturing and Service sectors, building the national
core competence and technologies will lead to additional high income
employment potential. The engines for growth will be accelerated by
launching of the five national missions viz. water, energy, education
and skills, infrastructure and employment generation. In totality of
these five missions will enable achievement of 10% GDP growth rate per
annum. It is possible to do so with ecological and economic
sustainability. It is not the mission of governments. It is a collective
effort of big and small businesses, science and technology and academic
institutions, foreign investors, and many others who have confidence
about India.

With these aspects in view, we have already laid down
the road map. The priority for the government is to convert the road map
into various missions. It is to be done in a decentralized manner
allowing a greater role for private enterprise and local initiatives.
While converting the vision into different missions we seem to have many
thoughts and variety of routes to reach the goal. This is where there is
a need to have a coherent thinking among all the members of the society,
including the legal and law enforcement agencies. All of us have to
think that the nation is greater than an individual or an organization.
All of us should believe, that "we can do it".

National Missions and opportunities
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Let me discuss some of the national missions that India
is giving thrust for achieving sustainable economic development for all
the regions of the nation. I am sharing these missions with the members
of the Lalit Narayan Mithial University, so that you can assist in
planning the participation of Bihar in the national development process.

First, I would like to discuss about PURA.

Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA)
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The number of PURA units for the whole country is
estimated to be 7000. This envisages integrated connectivities to bring
prosperity to rural India. These are - physical connectivity of the
village clusters through quality roads and transport; electronic
connectivity through tele-communication with high bandwidth fiber optic
cables and wireless for last mile to reaching the rural areas from urban
cities and through Internet kiosks; and knowledge connectivity through
education, vocational training for farmers, artisans and craftsmen and
entrepreneurship programmes. These three connectivities will lead to
economic connectivity through starting of enterprises with the help of
banks, micro credits and marketing of the products.

Each PURA cluster will connect about 20 villages depending upon the region and
population and will cost about Rs.100 crores (~$20 Million). After
initial short-term employment during construction etc., we have to plan
for initiating actions for providing regular employment and self
employment opportunities in nationally competitive small enterprises in
agro processing, manufacturing and services sectors for about 3000
people. If the industrial/business parks are marketed well, they can
generate employment opportunities in support sector for about 10,000
people in that cluster. This will provide sustainable economy for the
rural sector. In this national mission, bankers can promote
entrepreneurship in the rural areas. This will lead to the removal of
urban-rural divide. This experience can become a model for other
countries to follow.

PURA as an Enterprise:
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A large number of banks have entrepreneurial development programmes.
Banks have also been funding Small Scale Industries of different types in various regions.
The small scale industrialist is a promising candidate for becoming the
chief executive for managing the PURA complexes in an integrated way.
PURA enterprises can also undertake management of schools, health care
units, vocational training centres, chilling plants, silos and building
a market, banking system and the regional business or industrial units.
A new mission mode management style has to emerge for PURA enterprises.
It should not be looking for protective legislations to support them.
Rather they should be efficient to compete with others. This new PURA
enterprise needs partnership from the bank, educational institutions,
the Government and also the private entrepreneurs. Educational
institutions can train the entrepreneurs for managing the PURA in
colleges and the banks can provide loans to the entrepreneurs for
creating and running PURAs as a business proposition.

Since this University has started a Women Institute of Technology, I would like to
share with you a PURA Model which has been nurtured by a Women?s
Engineering College at Vallam, Thanjavur District of Tamil Nadu.


Periyar PURA
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This PURA Complex covers 65 villages near Vallam,
Thanjavur district of Tamilnadu involving a population of 3 lakhs. This
PURA complex has all the four connectivities - physical, electronic and
knowledge - leading to economic connectivity. The centre of activity
emanates from the women?s engineering college that provides the
electronic and knowledge connectivity. I understand that now five of the
Periyar PURA villages have been connected with Wi-MAX connectivity.
Periyar PURA has health care centres, primary to post graduate level
education and vocational training centres. This has resulted in large
scale employment generation and creation of a number of entrepreneurs
with the active support of 850 self-help groups. Two hundred acres of
waste land has been developed into cultivable land with innovative water
management schemes such as contour ponds and water sheds for storing and
irrigating the fields. All the villagers are busy in cultivation
planting Jatropha, herbal and medicinal plants, power generation using
bio-mass, food processing and above all running market centres. This
model has emanated independent of any government initiative. The
committed leadership has been provided by a Women?s Engineering College.

As you are aware, Bihar has 45,000 villages with nearly seventy
million people living in these villages. This will need creation of
nearly 600 PURAs in the whole of Bihar. Lalit Narayan Mithila University
can study the entire state of Bihar and work out the configuration of
the economically viable PURAs. Lalit Narayan Mithila University may
undertake establishment of PURA cluster in Dharbanga district in
partnership with Government, NGOs and private on the lines of Periyar
PURA. In the case of Bihar, since large numbers of farmers are depending
on agriculture, agro processing is an important area of rural
development which should become part of each one of the PURAs. These
PURAs can be run by the graduates passing out from Lalit Narayan Mithila
University.