PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
President: ‘City as development facilitator being eroded, needs 11-mission charter to get in shape’
BANGALORE, NOVEMBER 20: Presenting his vision for Karnataka, President A P J Abdul Kalam today advocated a charter of 11 missions to turn it into a developed state. ‘‘Karnataka’s contribution goes beyond satisfying the mind and the ears,’’ Kalam said in his address to the special session of the state legislature to mark the golden jubilee of the formation of Karnataka state.
Focusing on the state’s development in his PowerPoint presentation to a packed Legislative Assembly hall, where he was heard with rapt attention by members and dignitaries, Kalam called for increasing the existing per capita income of Rs 26,000 of 2004-5 to Rs 75,000 by 2009 by creating an investment friendly climate, leading to employment for two million unemployed.
Karnataka, which has a literacy rate of 67 per cent, should aim at realising the goal of 100 per cent literacy by 2012, he said. Based on the core competence the state has, it should undertake 11 missions in the sectors of textiles, energy, horticulture, agro processing, water management, tourism, preparing paramedics and technicians with quality training, creation of industries for knowledge products, grid connectivities for sustainable growth, establishment of PURA (Providing of Urban Infrastructure in Rural Areas) and development facilitators, Kalam suggested.
Touching upon the development facilitators that need to be created, Kalam suggested that Karnataka accord priority for road development and initiate the metro rail project for Bangalore.
To ensure that economic activity was equitably distributed across the state and for homogenous growth, taking into consideration the core competence of the regions, the state should develop Tier II cities around places like Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli, Dharwad, Belgaum, Gulbarga and Madikeri, the president said.
For improving the connectivity and enabling the existing industries to disperse and new industries to be created, the first requirement will be to create reliable air connectivity to and between all the Tier II cities, he said. ‘‘I have seen Bangalore in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and now. Bangalore’s economic growth has far exceeded the growth of the development facilitators,’’ Kalam observed, and cautioned that ‘‘the core attraction of Bangalore being a development facilitator is getting slowly eroded’’.
In this context, Kalam also underlined the need to establish commercial airports through BOOT schemes at Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli, Dharwad, Belgaum and Gulbarga in the next three years. Similarly, he said, an international airport has to come into existence in Bangalore by 2008. Kalam hailed the strides achieved by the state in the IT and BT sectors.
CM Dharam Singh said Karnataka was a fore-runner for democratic governance.
