The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : `Geometrical model of development better than arithmetic approach'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 20, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

`Geometrical model of development better than arithmetic approach'

Staff Reporter

"Focus should be on bringing the marginalised sections into the mainstream"

Chalking out strategies: K. Panchaksharam, Secretary, SIPA; A K Angurana, Deputy Director-General, CAPART; L V Saptharishi, Director-General, and R Pothi Reddi, president, SIPA (standing), at the conference in Chennai on Thursday. — Photo: K. V. Srinivasan

CHENNAI: Non-governmental organisations must strive for a geometrical model of social development, under which progress multiplies exponentially instead of pursuing an arithmetical model under which progress is sequential, L.V. Saptharishi, Director-General, Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technologies (CAPART), said.

Inaugurating the two-day first southern regional conference on "Enabling micro-enterprises for sustainable livelihood of the marginalised" here on Thursday, he said the "filtering down" model of development under which benefits were supposed to trickle down to the grass roots did not work anymore and a "bottom up" approach under which an enabling socio-economic environment was created at the lowest levels was needed.

The conference was jointly organised by CAPART and the South India Producer Associations (SIPA).

The focus should be on bringing the marginalised sections into the mainstream, generating multi-disciplinary income-generating activities that are profitable, usable and sustainable at the grass roots.

A vast section of the marginalised population hungered for growth opportunities that would bring them on a par with the mainstream. These sections must be provided linkages to global resources and markets. NGOs and voluntary organisations should evolve a clear plan of action by integrating locally available resources and technologies with financial linkages to markets, Mr. Saptharishi said.

Angurana, Deputy Director-General, CAPART, said that people at subsistence level must be helped to take up income-generating non-farm activities.

The new policy guidelines of CAPART were released on the occasion.

Mr. Saptharishi told presspersons that CAPART had so far provided Rs. 800 crores worth of grants to 12,000 NGOs and SHGs.

Later, he gave away prizes to two winners of the Hazard Resistant House Design Contest organised by the Gandhigram Rural Institute and Bhoomika Trust. The first prize was won by Orissa Development Technocrats Forum and the second prize by the Auroville Earth Institute. Gandhigram Rural Institute would conduct three national-level design contests with field-designs at Nagapattinam, its Vice-Chancellor T. Karunakaran said.

The first was for habitat design on a 22-acre plot at Pazhayaru for building 900 houses and for a smaller habitat at neighbouring Mandavedu.

The second was for community-halls and balwadis for 250 to 500 families and the third for environmental reconstruction of Pazhayaru.

The last date for submission of entries was 30 June.

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