I am indeed delighted to participate in the DANG Mahotsava and be in the midst of you all. I am happy to inaugurate the DANG Mahotsava and the free legal aid center established for the benefit of the native population. My greetings to the distinguished guests, the organizers and other participants of the Mahotsava and my dear students.

The heart of India lies in its villages as there are 5,83,000 villages in our country and around 70% of our population reside in the villages. Hence the villages have to play a crucial role in bringing about overall development in the country. The next two decades are very important for India for transforming from a 'developing' country to a 'developed' nation. The responsible citizens, are all the more important for the nation as their thoughts, the way of working and value system will lead to fast development of a good family, good society and ultimately a good nation.

The educational complex of Ritambara Vishwa Vidyapeeth is providing useful service to the local population by imparting education to girl students coming from surrounding villages. I am happy to note that girls who have studied here are occupying important positions as teachers professors, police personnel and government employees. The institution is also providing vocational training such as plant nursery, honey bee, bamboo craft and pickle making related to forest based products which can provide employment opportunity for the local villagers. This is a welcome step towards a healthy rural development mission.

PURA

To achieve this vision, I would like to share with you some thoughts on possible missions. For bridging the rural-urban divide and achieving balanced socio-economic development, our Pradhan Mantriji, as part of his Independence Day Announcements, has declared the Rural Development Programme called PURA - Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas. It involves identification of rural clusters with growth potential and creating four types of connectivities for them -

(i) Road, transportation and power connectivity

(ii) electronic connectivity in the form of reliable telecom, Internet and IT services

(iii) knowledge connectivity in the form of good educational and training institutions, and

(iv) Market connectivity that would enable kisans and others to get the best prices for their produce.

The Government has decided to implement the PURA strategy in 5,000 rural clusters across the country in the next five years. But the success of this ambitious programme lies in the collaborative efforts and active participation of all the villagers and the local leaders at the grassroot level.

Suggested Role of villagers in PURA

The village leaders can create awareness about PURA amongst the village community so that they can come forward to willingly contribute in this development programme. The contribution could be in the form of -

(a) Promoting and facilitating illiteracy eradication campaigns in the village.

(b) Explaining the usefulness of computer education in village administration for providing transparent governance and economic advancement.

(c) Forming village cooperatives for central procurement, storage, preservation, processing and marketing the goods at attractive price.

(d) Working for providing better nutrition, sanitation facilities, safe drinking water and access to reproductive healthcare for healthy families and communities.

(e) Fighting against the social evils such as dowry, female foeticide, child marriage, child labour, domestic violence, and ill-treatment and harassment of the socially backward classes.

(f) Encouraging women to attain economic independence through formation of Self Help Groups with the help of micro-credit and organising various skill training programmes.

(g) Facilitating the conservation of energy through effective utilization of solar power, recyling the waste for energy generation and management of water through rainwater harvesting etc,

Conclusion

When a child is empowered by the parents at various phases of growth, the child gets transformed into a responsible citizen. When a teacher is empowered with knowledge and experience, good young human beings with value systems emerge. When an individual or a team is empowered with technology, transformation to higher potential for achievement is assured. When a leader of any village empowers his or her people, leaders are born who can change the nation in multiple areas. When women are empowered, society with stability gets assured. When the political leaders of the nation empower the people through visionary policies, the prosperity of the nation is certain. When religions are empowered and become spiritual force, peace and happiness will blossom in people's heart. Empowerment of various layers of management structure is indeed the best instrument to maximize the performance of a given fund to the developmental tasks. Such an empowered stage will lead to creation of enlightened citizens with value system resulting in prosperity of the nation.

I have developed a oath for promoting prosperity among village population. I would like to administer the oath, if you all agree.

Declaration by the village citizens

. Children are our precious wealth

� We will give equal importance for male and female children in providing education and rights for growth of our society.

� For health and prosperity we will have a small family.

� Earnings come out of hard work. We will not waste it in gambling and liquor.

� We need to tell our children about the importance of education as learning gives knowledge and knowledge makes the children succeed.

� We need to jointly protect our forest and prevent pollution.

� We will plant at least five trees/saplings.

� We will become the role models for our children.

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