I am indeed delighted to participate in this inaugural function of Elected Women Sarpanches organised by the Guild of Service. My greetings to the distinguished guests, the organisers and all the women sarpanches from different States who have assembled here to participate in this programme.

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, particularly women 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.

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 village leaders at the grassroot levels. Moreover, a woman with her inherent characteristics such as compassion, patience, perseverance, honesty, sensitivity to social issues, constructive approach towards problem solving and hard work, will be able to play a vital role in realising this mission. Such women, when empowered through the democratic process, can collectively produce spectacular results.

I am reminded of Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharatiar, who in 1910 composed the poem envisioning women of India:

This beautiful poem means -

She walks with raised head,

With her eyes looking straight,

She has her principles,

Unafraid of anybody!

She has a lofty

And knowledge based pride,

Such cultured women,

Don't falter from the chosen path.

She drives ignorance away.

She welcomes the bliss of life.

With learned mind,

This is the Dharma

Of emerging woman.

The dream of the poet, I am sure, will become a reality.

Suggested Roles of Sarpanches in PURA

The Sarpanches 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,

Empowerment

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.

Conclusion

The process for transforming India into a developed nation has already commenced. All of you are working towards this cause in your own way. We find many individual success stories of women for income generation in the fields of agriculture, agro-processing, cottage industry, handicrafts, sericulture, herbal farming etc. Women are also leading movements against social evils with certain amount of success. I have already administrated the oath which you have repeated with me. I would request you to spread this oath among all members of your village on your return from this workshop. Now there is a need to make concerted efforts as a nation to work persistently towards the singular goal of making India a developed nation by the year 2020. Women sarpanches should become creative leaders. You may play a lead role in the implementation of providing urban facilities in rural areas in your village with the help of Central Government, State governments, entrepreneurs and non-governmental organizations. This can be achieved by motivating the rural population and mobilizing their fullest support. This will be the key task of all the women sarpanches. I wish you all success in your endeavours.

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