Regional disparities remain as one of the biggest challenge: PM

Regional disparities remain as one of the biggest challenge: PM

Speaking at the inauguration of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi, Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh said, “One of our biggest challenges remains the challenge of reducing regional disparities. Equally important is the challenge of ensuring the economic and social upliftment of our scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, other backward classes, less privileged sections of society and religious and linguistic minorities. These challenges have to be addressed at every level of the policy pyramid.” ”Our Government has launched a series of developmental initiatives since 2004. These initiatives are aimed at investing in rural and urban infrastructure, at guaranteeing minimum employment and generating maximum employment. These initiatives are aimed at improving access to and the availability of education and health care to all our citizens. These initiatives need to be carried for they seek to improve the productivity of our farm economy and the income of our farmers where 65% of our population depends on agriculture,” he added.

Emphasising on the constructive role to be played by all the stakeholders, he said, “But for each of these initiatives to be successfully implemented we need pro-active and creative leadership at the State and district level. We need a more active civil society and media focus on the quality of governance at the State and district levels. Urban governance has to vastly improve to make our cities and towns meet the needs of a burgeoning urban population. We need a creative entrepreneurial class that can compete both at home and abroad without artificial props. A visionary national leadership alone cannot do much when the challenge of development is in the realm of policy implementation and where States must be active partners.” ”For us this challenge is compounded by the fact that our less developed regions are also the more populated ones. This has contributed to the persistence of poverty and to the problem of internal migration and it is also driven by sometimes law and order problems. In these States we need a forward looking, development oriented political leadership. We need a committed and pro-active civil service. We need an active civil society. We need a professional middle class. We need a combination of all these participants to transform our less developed regions and take them forward on the road to sustained development,” he added.

- Courtesy: PMO release