Chandigarh, August 19
On the initiative of the Planning Commission, all states are engaged in preparing futuristic vision development reports with two components: one perspective plan for the 10 th Five Year Plan, (2002-2007) and the other up to 2020.

A broad policy framework has been circulated, based on the approach paper to the 10 th plan, to serve as a guide encompassing all aspects — profile, demography, urban and rural development management, agricultural and industrial needs, labour, employment, information technology, fiscal management, etc.

A member of the Planning Commission, Dr K. Venkatasubramanian, is in charge of Punjab and Assam. He is in Chandigarh for a meeting-cum-seminar on the preparation of the state development report on Punjab, beginning at the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID) here tomorrow.

In an interview with TNS, Dr Venkatasubramanian today said Punjab had the potential to transform itself and march in step with the changing times and requirements. All that the state had to do, as a first step and among other things, was to reorient its elementary education, revamp the health delivery system, decentralise power sharing with grassroots democratic institutions in villages and towns, tap the existing talent of the youth, encourage private initiative and develop communication and connectivity.

What “surprised’’ Dr Venkatasubramanian was that though the Punjabi diaspora had a global sweep, Punjab did not have an Indian Institute of Technology, (IIT). In fact, at the interaction this evening with the CRRID faculty and invitees to the meeting-cum-seminar, he was approached to impress upon the state Chief Minister to work for the setting up of an IIT in Punjab. He suggested Punjab should set up a ‘’taskforce’’ on establishing an IIT.

Dr Venkatasubramanian shared his experiences of China, how it was going all out to teach the English language to students. China wanted India to send teachers to teach the language. In the same way, Punjab had also to go a long way and lay stress on English learning and teaching.

Much of what he shared with TNS has already been told to the state at the time of the discussions on its Annual Plan by the commission Deputy Chairman, Mr K. C. Pant. Reiterating some of those points, he said Punjab had to have a ‘’knowledge society’’ as envisaged for the country by the Prime Minister, who recently released the approach paper to the 10th Five Year Plan. The bottom line was to work for ‘’human well-being’’ using knowledge as the fulcrum ‘’enabling society to leap-frog into finding new and innovative ways to meet the challenges of building a just and equitable social order and seek urgent solutions’’, as the Prime Minister had said.

The five points for developing a ‘’knowledge society’’ would have to be based on 1 education for developing a learning society; 2 global networking; 3 vibrant government-industry-academia interaction in policy making and implementation; 4 leveraging of the existing competencies in information technology, telecommunication, biotechnology, drugs design, financial services and enterprisewide management; and 5 economic and business strategic alliances built on capabilities and opportunities.

Understandably, Dr Venkatasubramanian said ‘’no comments’’ on Punjab’s decision to give ‘’free’’ power for tubewells to farmers and other freebies that had blocked the inflow of huge sums of money for various development projects from world financial institutions. Nevertheless, he appreciated the initiative of Punjabi NRIs (non-resident Indians) in taking up some community projects in the state but he expressed his concern over some other aspects.

He specifically mentioned the low female literacy rate and the lower number of female vis-a-vis males as of major concern, besides the lack of the drinking water facility in the rural areas and even the lack of potable water. The presence of waterlogging, absence of proper infrastructure for elementary education (and a large percentage of students not going to schools not to speak of school dropouts) and the inadequate health delivery system were also mentioned. The heavy losses incurred by the transport sector, non-revision of the water and power tariff and the lack of perspective on the World Trade Organisation were other issues he explicitly expressed his concern about. He was as much perturbed over the way agro-development had shaped as he was over the little effort in downsizing the government.

The Planning Commission has selected CRRID for the preparation of state development reports in consultation with academicians, political leaders and bureaucrats. There is need to ensure the proper inflow of finance for the proposed futuristic vision reports as also of a ‘’monitoring cell’’ for implementation at the cutting edge of the administration so that the intended benefits trickled down to the clients.

The CRRID Director, Mr Rashpal Malhotra, said the endeavour would be to involve all political parties and their leaders to draw up a commonly accepted economic agenda for Punjab’s sustained development and growth, irrespective of the political party which came to power. ‘’There has to be a continuity in sustainable development which can take place only if there is a strong political will, a committed bureaucracy and a cooperating corporate sector, all rising above vested interests contributing to work for a ‘’knowledge society’’, he added.

Dr Venkatasubramanian is a well-known educationist, economist and architect of the plus-two system and vocationalisation besides the mid-day meal scheme for schools. He believes in ‘’value education’’ beginning at the elementary stage right up to the universities.