Opinion makers differ on development paradigm

Opinion makers differ on development paradigm
Deccan Herald

The CDP proposes 6,250 acres of land for IT but there is no mention about the slums, which constitute almost 30 per cent of the city, Clifton D’Souza observed.

The Independent Commission of People’s Rights and Development (ICPRD) on Monday hosted an interactive session between Members of Parliament and opinion makers to discuss the building of a development network of Parliamentarians. The event was organised as part of the ICPRD initiative to increase development advocacy in Parliament.

The interaction followed the visit of an all-party team of MPs to Bangalore. Speaking at the event, the four MPs - Tathagatha Sathpathy (BJD - Orissa), Lal Singh (Congress - J&K), Moolchand Meena (Congress - Rajasthan) and Kiran Maheshwari (BJP - Rajasthan) - aired their views on the concept of development and said they would go back with ideas to improve their respective constituencies.

Nandini Azad, Member Secretary of ICPRD said MPs from the south would take up a visit to Rajasthan in October as a reciprocative event.

‘Not just good roads’

Many of the speakers spoke on the importance of looking at development in a broader perspective than narrowing it down to good roads or particular industries.

“It’s time we started realising the importance of villages and the participation of women in development,” said Alan Nazareth of Sarvodaya International Trust.

Clifton D’Souza, representing the Alternate Law Forum criticised the Bangalore Development Authority’s (BDA) Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) for the year 2015, saying that the master plan had failed to mention the slums in the city.

“The plan projects an idea that Bangalore is solely an IT city. It proposes 6250 acres of land for the IT sector but there is no mention about the slums, which constitute almost 30 per cent of the City,” he said.

Samuel Paul, chairman of Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore, stressed the need to change the top-down development model and called for empowerment of the people with knowledge of their rights, while Rajiv Gowda of IIM-B said the challenge for Bangalore was in tapping resources of booming industries and harnessing them to ensure overall development in the State.

‘Take IT to villages’

Krishna Gowda, MLA of Vemagal in Kolar district said the development ensured by the IT industry boom should also be taken to smaller towns and villages. “The focus should be on employment in the semi-skilled and unskilled sectors. For instance, the idea of call centres outside Bangalore for domestic clients could be explored,” he said.