By Sanjay Sharma, IANS
Bhopal : Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Tuesday stressed on the need to implement the National Performance Index (NPI) for achieving the dream of seeing India a developed nation by 2020.
Inaugurating a three-day management festival, Odyssey-2007, at the Bhopal School of Social Sciences, Kalam said that the major problems before the country were poverty, increasing population, lack of education, unemployment and slow pace of development.
“The dream of a developed nation would be futile till these burning problems staring at us are solved,” he said.
The former president expressed satisfaction over nine percent GDP growth rate but expressed concern over its unequal distribution in different parts of the country.
“Disparities, specially in rural areas, can be removed by encouraging programmes that aim at improving health, education, agriculture and infrastructure development,” he said.
Referring to Mahatma Gandhi, Vikram Sarabhai and Jamshed Tata as role models in their respective fields, he asked youth to become role models in their own areas so as to make India a developed nation by 2020.
“Youth have immense power and capacity and they should not only set their target but also work honestly and continuously to achieve it,” he said.