Former Prime Minister of India - Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Speech of Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee At the XIX Convocation of Institute of Rural Management, Anand, Gujarat

My Cabinet Colleague, Shri Sundarlal Patwa,

Chief Minister of Gujarat, Shri Keshubhai Patel,

Chairman, IRMA, Dr. Verghese Kurien,

Chairman, NDDB, Dr. Amritaben Patel,

Members of IRMA Board of Governors,

Dr. Katar Singh, Director, IRMA,

IRMA faculty, staff and students,

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am delighted to be here with you this morning.

It is an opportunity to visit the Institute of Rural Management in Anand that has been rendering service to the nation by training young men and women in managing rural development. More importantly, it is a pleasure to meet young men and women like you who, through your work, can shape the destiny of our nation in the Twenty-first century.

Those of you who will be stepping out into the real world from the academic confines of this institute in search of careers and jobs have a unique opportunity: You are equipped with special knowledge and skills that can be used to change the face of rural India.

It calls for dedication. It calls for determination. Above all, it calls for faith in the abilities and centuries-old wisdom of the people who live in our villages. I have no doubt that you will not be found wanting in dedication, determination and faith.

That the Institute of Rural Management is located in Gujarat where Mahatma Gandhi was born, imparts certain significance to the task that lies ahead of you. The Mahatma had abiding faith in the abilities of rural India to break free of the shackles of poverty and show the way to prosperity through sustainable growth.

He believed in the revival of rural India's abilities and the strengthening of India's rural economy.

True independence and liberty, for the Mahatma, lay in liberating India's village communities from poverty and exploitation. In Hind Swaraj, he says:

~We want to make our villages free and self-sufficient and through them achieve our goal – liberty… When I say I want independence for the millions, I mean to say not only that the millions may have something to eat and to cover themselves with, but that they will be free from the exploitation of people here and outside…~

As you step out of IRMA, I hope you will remember Mahatma Gandhi's words. I also hope you will treat your new jobs and careers as a mission to liberate rural India from the clutches of poverty and under-development. Your acquired skills and knowledge will then no doubt contribute to improving the lot of the people who live in India's villages -- both socially and economically.

Our Government, since assumption of office in 1998, has endeavoured to fulfill the Mahatma's dream. We have taken certain steps for more effective implementation of rural development schemes.

To begin with, we have focused on enhancing the capacity of the rural poor through the establishment of self-help groups to act as facilitators of development.

Second, we have simplified our rural development mission, making it easily comprehensible to the masses. Bringing various schemes under the three broad categories of rural infrastructure, self-employment and wage-employment has done this.

And, finally, we have accorded higher priority than ever before to providing shelter to the rural homeless.

In addition, we have introduced greater flexibility in tackling rural poverty by providing unprecedented resources in helping rehabilitate those affected by natural disasters.

The importance of rural development in the overall development programme of India cannot be over-emphasised.

More than 70 per cent of India's population lives in her 600,000 villages. Two-thirds of the country's workforce is engaged in agriculture and allied activities, contributing 26% of our gross domestic product. India is a predominantly agrarian economy and will remain so in the Twenty-first century.

Therefore, the road to India's prosperity has to pass through her villages. If we look at the successful East Asian economies like those of Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, we will find that they first achieved sustained seven to eight per cent growth rates in their rural sector before becoming industrial and export giants.

Thus, no strategy of socio-economic development that bypasses the rural sector – its people, its natural resources, its problems and its potentials – can succeed. In fact, rural development lies at the core of India's overall progress.

Unfortunately, till recent years there has been inadequate appreciation of this fact. As a result, India's experience with rural development in the first five decades of Independence presents a study in contrasts, some of whose features are:

For the first time in India's recorded history, famines have been eradicated. From a food deficit country, we have become food self-sufficient; yet, there are pockets of endemic hunger and malnutrition continues to stalk millions;

India is the world's largest producer of milk, thanks primarily to the unique cooperative-based White Revolution; yet, per capita availability of milk for the poor is low;

We are the world's second largest producer of fruits and vegetables; but only one per cent of this is processed, compared to 50 per cent in South America and 70 per cent in Israel.

No less stark is the comparison between India's impressive progress in agricultural production and the rather modest achievement in eradicating poverty and improving quality of life.

The percentage of people living below the poverty line is still unacceptably high. As a result, average life expectancy and per capita income remain low, and so also does the Human Development Index.

Several structural and operational reforms, introduced as part of overall economic reforms in India, have had their impact on rural development and agriculture. At the international level, too, new rules governing trade have been introduced.

It is a collective challenge for all of us to set right the distortions in our development process and overcome the challenges of the new global economy. For you, it is an opportunity to employ your skills towards this end.

In this context, the immediate task that you need to set for yourselves is empowering the rural population:

To overcome poverty, unemployment and illiteracy;

To cope with the vulnerability of agriculture to vagaries of nature; and;

To face the new situation in the market place.

I am confident that you and other rural managers will play an important role by spearheading the cause of sustainable rural development.

The changes in the national and international economic environment offer many opportunities. To seize these opportunities, we need to take a fresh look at our existing laws and regulations that have a direct bearing on rural development.

It is also necessary to organise rural producers, especially small and marginal farmers, in the wake of liberalisation and globalisation. This alone will strengthen and improve their bargaining power. Moreover, it will give them access to appropriate technology, institutional finance, national and international markets and professional management.

In this era of liberalization and globalisation, we need to re-examine the role of genuine rural producers' cooperatives and consider freeing our producers from unnecessary interference. Corporatisation of cooperatives is one option that merits a close look.

That, however, is only one aspect of our rural economy. For overall sustainable rural development, we must adopt a fresh holistic approach and a new pragmatic programme.

My vision of a prosperous and proud India is based on a strong rural economy that offers employment opportunities, generates income, creates wealth for society as a whole and reverses the migration from villages to cities. At the same time, it respects the need to protect the balance of natural resources and environment.

To achieve this, we need to work rapidly in some key areas like:

Developing critical rural infrastructure such as approach roads, godowns, cold storage capacity, post-harvest processing facilities;

Creating local facilities for value addition to traditional rural products;

Putting into place a sustainable rural development model based on community participation in the development and management of watersheds;

Introducing regionally differentiated agricultural production strategies and environment friendly investments in technology; and,

Empowering rural communities through further devolution of powers to panchayats, involvement of marginal groups in the decision-making process and a completely decentralised methodology of resource mobilisation and expenditure.

Yet another critical necessity for rapid rural development is the establishment of an effective and efficient delivery system for poverty eradication programmes.

Although there is no dearth of anti-poverty programmes sponsored by the Union and the State Governments, they often suffer from a fundamental flaw in their implementation. Financial target achievement is often perceived as the indicator of their success. Had this been true, then the enormous sums of money that have already been spent should have by now made a greater dent on poverty levels.

However, experience shows that this is not the case. On the contrary, poverty has remained at an unacceptable high level; in fact, in certain regions it has increased over the years.

Indeed, our experience shows that some schemes, due to poor implementation, have made the poor dependent on Government largesse, sapping them of all motivation and initiative. Worse, often leaving them weaker than before.

We have to, therefore, consider other options of effective poverty eradication.

Instead of making the poor solely dependent on Government largesse and thus making them captive to the caprices of ineffective delivery systems, we have made a beginning to empower them in a manner that will enable them to stand on their own feet and gain access to sustainable incomes.

As the Chinese say, it is wiser to teach a man how to fish rather than catch the fish for him. I need not emphasise the aptness of this proverb in our context.

Among the options for ensuring sustainable income for the rural poor is the Anand model of rural development as it has evolved over the last five decades.

This model has effectively ensured market intervention in favour of small agricultural producers, provided them with all critical inputs and infused a sense of self-confidence in the poor and other vulnerable sections of rural society. It is a pragmatic approach to promoting sustainable and equitable rural development.

Variants of this model have been replicated elsewhere with success. With the help of professional rural managers like those of you who are graduating today, the pace of rural development can be accelerated by further replication of the Anand model.

I have no doubt in my mind that you are fully equipped to help harness the tremendous capacities of our villages and convert rural India into the foundation on which a prosperous national economy can be built.

I congratulate you for successfully graduating from IRMA and wish you a productive future as managers of rural development.

Thank you.