Provision of Urban Amenities to Rural Areas (PURA) is a strategy for rural development in India. This concept was given by former president Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and discussed in his book Target 3 Billion which he co-authored with Srijan Pal Singh. The genesis of PURA can be traced to the work done by Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute in the early 1990s on Taluka energy self-sufficiency. [1] It was shown in the study that energy self-sufficient talukas can be a new development model for rural India in terms of creation of jobs and better amenities to its population. [2]
PURA proposes that urban infrastructure and services be provided in rural hubs to create economic opportunities outside of cities. Physical connectivity by providing roads, electronic connectivity by providing communication networks, and knowledge connectivity by establishing professional and technical institutions will have to be done in an integrated way so that economic connectivity will emanate. The Indian central government has been running pilot PURA programs in several states since 2004. The Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Rurban Mission is a successor to this mission. [3] [4]
Former Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on 24 February 2012 launched the restructured PURA scheme that combines rural infrastructure development with economic regeneration in Private Public Partnership (PPP) mode and seeks to harness the efficiencies of the private sector. He slammed former president APJ Abdul Kalam's concept of PURA as a failure. Ramesh said that while the PURA launched by Kalam has failed, the reworked PURA will succeed. [5] The minister was optimistic about the success of the new PURA because of the difference in the objectives. He was of the view that, now the focus was on water supply, sanitation, and physical infrastructure rather than knowledge connectivity.
The Rural ministry plans to reform one of its ambitious yet not so successful programme; Provision of Urban amenities in Rural Areas (PURA), to facilitate creation of urban infrastructure in around 2,000 new towns that have been identified by the 2011 decadal census. It is also trying to restructure the old PURA objectives laid down by the then President. [6]
The Prestigious scheme proposed providing livelihood and urban amenities in compact areas around a potential growth center in Gram Panchayats through Public Private Partnership (PPP) framework to provide guarantee employment to rural areas so that they could have an assured income for at least 100 days of a year. The scheme is now facing rampant corruption, cases of underpayment of wages have been received by the government from all over the country. [7]
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul KalamBR was an Indian aerospace scientist and statesman who served as the 11th president of India from 2002 to 2007. Born and raised in a Muslim family in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, he studied physics and aerospace engineering. He spent the next four decades as a scientist and science administrator, mainly at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and was intimately involved in India's civilian space programme and military missile development efforts. He thus came to be known as the Missile Man of India for his work on the development of ballistic missile and launch vehicle technology. He also played a pivotal organisational, technical, and political role in India's Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998, the first since the original nuclear test by India in 1974.
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Jairam Ramesh is an Indian politician belonging to INC. He is a Member of Parliament representing Karnataka state in the Rajya Sabha. In July 2011, Jairam was elevated to the Union Council of Ministers of India and appointed Minister of Rural Development and Minister of the new Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. However, in the cabinet reshuffle in October 2012, he was divested of the portfolio of Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. He was previously the Indian Minister of State at the Ministry of Environment and Forests from May 2009 to July 2011.
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The Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Award, named after the 11th President of India and aerospace scientist A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, is awarded by the Government of Tamil Nadu in recognition of contributions on scientific development, humanities and students' welfare.