Provision of Urban Amenities to Rural Areas (PURA) is a strategy for

rural development Rural development is the process of improving the quality life and economic well-being of people living in rural areas, often relatively isolated and sparsely populated areas. Rural development has traditionally centered on the exploitation of ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. This concept was given by former president

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (; 15 October 193127 July 2015) was an Indian aerospace scientist and statesman who served as the 11th President of India from 2002 to 2007. He was born and raised in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu and studied phy ...

and discussed in his book Target 3 Billion which he co-authored with

Srijan Pal Singh Srijan Pal Singh is an Indian author, public speaker and social entrepreneur. He was born and raised in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Singh is an electrical engineer from the Institute of Engineering & Technology, Lucknow and a management graduate f ...

. The genesis of PURA can be traced to the work done by

Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) is a non-governmental organisation and non-profit research and development institute in Tambmal, Phaltan, Maharashtra, India. The institute undertakes research and development in the fields of agri ...

in the early 1990s on Taluka energy self-sufficiency. It was shown in the study that energy self-sufficient talukas can be a new development model for rural India in terms of creation of jobs and better amenities to its population. PURA proposes that urban infrastructure and services be provided in rural hubs to create economic opportunities outside of cities. Physical connectivity by providing

road A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of ...

s, electronic connectivity by providing

communication networks A telecommunications network is a group of nodes interconnected by telecommunications links that are used to exchange messages between the nodes. The links may use a variety of technologies based on the methodologies of circuit switching, messag ...

, and knowledge connectivity by establishing professional and technical institutions will have to be done in an integrated way so that economic connectivity will emanate. The Indian central government has been running pilot PURA programs in several states since 2004. The Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Rurban Mission is a successor to this mission.

Current status of PURA

Failure of PURA

Former Rural Development Minister

Jairam Ramesh Jairam Ramesh (born 9 April 1954) is an Indian politician belonging to Indian National Congress. He is a Member of Parliament representing Karnataka state in the Rajya Sabha. In July 2011, Jairam was elevated to the Union Council of Ministers o ...

on 24 February 2012 launched the restructured PURA scheme that combines rural infrastructure development with economic regeneration in Private Public Partnership (PPP) mode and seeks to harness the efficiencies of the private sector. He slammed former president APJ Abdul Kalam's concept of PURA as a failure. Ramesh said that while the PURA launched by Kalam has failed, the reworked PURA will succeed. The minister was optimistic about the success of the new PURA because of the difference in the objectives. He was of the view that, now the focus was on

water supply Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavors or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. Public water supply systems are crucial to properly functioning societies. Thes ...

sanitation Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation systems ...

, and physical infrastructure rather than knowledge connectivity.

Extension to 2000 new towns

The Rural ministry plans to reform one of its ambitious yet not so successful programme – Provision of Urban amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) – to facilitate creation of urban infrastructure in around 2,000 new towns that have been identified by the 2011 decadal

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

. It is also trying to restructure the old PURA objectives laid down by the then President.

Underpayment of wages

The Prestigious scheme proposed providing livelihood and urban amenities in compact areas around a potential growth center in Gram Panchayats through Public Private Partnership (PPP) framework to provide guarantee employment to rural areas so that they could have an assured

income Income is the consumption and saving opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. Income is difficult to define conceptually and the definition may be different across fields. For ...

for at least 100 days of a year. The scheme is now facing rampant

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...

, cases of underpayment of

wage A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include compensatory payments such as ''minimum wage'', ''prevailing wage'', and ''yearly bonuses,'' and remuner ...

s have been received by the government from all over the country.

References

External links