The Hindu : National : Pranab asks defence companies to adopt villages

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Saturday, Oct 07, 2006
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Pranab asks defence companies to adopt villages

Special Correspondent

Pranab Mukherjee

NEW DELHI: The Defence Ministry on Friday asked its nine public sector undertakings (PSUs) and 39 Ordnance Factories (OFs) to begin discharging their social responsibilities to non-employees living in the vicinity of their townships and plans. The idea is to adopt at least 50 villages for an experiment in integrated sustainable village development by defence-oriented public sector and government-owned companies.

These activities must be different from the social projects being undertaken by these companies, instructed Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee at a meeting with Chairman of Ordnance Factory Board and chief executives of the defence PSUs. Instead of approaching the exercise as a dole-oriented project they should utilise their technical and managerial skills to ensure that assets were managed well.

Mr. Mukherjee suggested four principal cornerstones — sustainable development and exploiting natural resources to the extent they can be replenished; restoring degraded resources on a priority basis; institutional arrangement to create and maintain community assets; and, allowing the village population to own the responsibility for utilising the assets put up by the companies.

The Minister had sounded out the OFs and defence PSUs about the need to bear social responsibility at a review meeting held two months ago. Taking the cue, some PSUs had come prepared with action plans.

For instance, the Mazagaon Dockyard plans to develop a small settlement into a model village. Mostly consisting of daily labourers, these families were ousted from the main village and were living in huts in extreme poverty.

The meeting saw deliberations on the various types of infrastructure that would dovetail with the concept of improving the lot of selected villages near PSU plants and OFs.

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