The Hindu Business Line : Invest Rs 500 crore in hi-tech clusters: Kalam

THE President, Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, has sought a Rs 500-crore investment in creating 100 Hitech PURA clusters across the country to bring in a visible change in rural India.

Each PURA (Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas), built around a public-private partnership model, involves an Educational Institute.

The challenge is to identify 100 Educational Institutes away from urban areas, provide Rs 5 crore to develop infrastructure, and link them with 20 villages around, he told the Indian Science Congress today.

Mr Kalam urged science leaders, Secretaries of Ministries, and University faculty present in the audience to take up the challenge in finding the resources and realising the mission during the year.

"I have already discussed the mission with the Union Minister for Rural Development, Mr Raghuvansh Prasad Yadav," he said.

The encouragement for this mission has been the success of the PURA concept in operation in three places - Vallam in Tamil Nadu, Loni in Maharastra, and Chitrakoot in Madhya Pradesh.

In these places, the technology, academia-driven initiatives have shown good results and I have visited all these places, the President said.

The Kisan Call Centre in New Delhi (toll free no 1551), has logged six lakh callers from more than eight States and shown interest among the rural folk.

Such call centres could provide the knowledge resources to the PURA clusters, Mr Kalam said.

Emphasising the need to implement strategies that increased farm productivity, set up income-generating activities and improving the overall health and education levels in rural areas, he underlined a seven-point research mission to the scientific world.

The mission includes a second green revolution, by doubling foodgrains production by 2020; water treatment plants to provide potable water; hill agriculture, floriculture and horticulture; and productivity increase in rice, wheat and solar power plants.