By IANS
New Delhi : Millions of Indians living on under Rs.20 (50 cents) a day should be empowered to better living through the 250,000 locally elected self-governing units, Panchayati Raj minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said here Monday.
“Participatory development and inclusive governance is the way to inclusive growth,” the minister told the India Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
The corporate sector must create massive non-farm job opportunities with a heavy dose of investment and that greater urbanisation of rural India was required to stem the rising migration from villages to metropolitan cities, the minister said.
He listed Kerala, Karnataka, Sikkim, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat as states which have efficiently developed governance at the panchayati level, due to which they could respond to development initiatives of the central government.
Aiyar specifically spoke of special economic zones and said these should not be developed without the consent of local people and must come up only in less-inhabited locations.
“The development of rural areas should be consciously pushed and companies should be given adequate incentives to set up industry in non-urban areas.”