Lack of access impeding eco activity in remote areas: Kalam

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Lack of physical access is impeding economic activity in a number of remote and tribal places in India, says former president A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.

This observation is made in his latest book "Target 3 Billion: PURA: Innovative Solutions Towards Sustainable Development", co-authored by Srijan Pal Singh.

With 750 million people living in villages, India has the largest rural population in the world. Based on his Indian experience, Kalam recommends a sustainable and inclusive development system called PURA - Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas - to uplift the rural masses not by subsidies but through entrepreneurship with community participation.

To make his case, he cites the examples of individuals and institutions, in India and from across the world, who, with an entrepreneurial spirit and a burning desire to make a difference, have successfully generated and tapped into the potential of the rural masses.

Fabio Luiz de Oliveira Rosa changed the face of the rural district of Palmares, Brazil, by acquiring for the farmers access to electricity and water which effect combined with better agricultural methods led to an increase in prosperity and stemmed the migration to the cities

The 123-strong Magar clan owned Magarpatta, a 430-acre plot on the outskirts of Pune, Maharashtra. In the 1990s, they organised and set up the Magarpatta city which is now home to over 35,000 residents and a working population of 65,000, and boasts of an IT park.

Kalam recalls that during a visit to the Nicobar Island after the December 2004 tsunami, he asked tribal leaders why they did not use the ocean's wealth for economic growth.

They said though they had deep knowledge about fishing, they lacked proper knowledge on how to market the excess fish beyond their village need.

"This lack of knowledge was hindering their economic growth," he writes in the book, published by Penguin.

According to Kalam, "India's heart resides in its villages, and just like a doctor whose work begins with the diagnosis of the heartbeat, the planning and execution of any policy for the nation of a billion, has to begin with the learning derived from its 600,000 villages."

Today in the underdeveloped, the developing and some parts of the developed nations of the world, more than three billion people live in villages, often in a condition of underutilisation of talent and resources and of deprivation.

The book addresses the opportunities that elude this half of the human population who are important from the point of view of global policy-making, national governance and the corporate world.

The book is based on the first-hand experience of the authors and bears testimony to the evolution and implementation of a sustainable development system in various regions that enjoy diversities in input conditions and strategies.

It tries to integrate the challenges and opportunities of the present human civilisation and demonstrate how to meticulously evolve a sustainable development system of PURA by harnessing the potential of the rural masses of the world.