Providing urban amenities in rural areas is $150 bn business: Kalam

NEW DELHI - Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Wednesday said the programme for Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) is a $150 billion business opportunity.

The programme, which was envisaged by Kalam when he was the president of India, has now become part of the government’s development programme for six lakh villages. The former president has now proposed an enterprise network for this programme.

“This enterprise network has to be evolved with technical collaboration from a multi-dimensional array of technological and managerial institutions,” Kalam said at the 8th Knowledge Millennium summit-2010-2020: Decade of Innovations.

This network would work in close synchronisation and integration with institutions or organisations of repute, he added.

For the future missions, Kalam envisaged increasing food production to 350 million tonnes, ICT output of 200 billion by 2012 and at least 25 per cent of generic drugs of the world to be produced in India.