Gandhian values online in Indian state (Madhya Pradesh)
mponthenet.com
madhyabharat.com
mptourism.com
NEW DELHI, July 19 (Reuters) - The chief minister of India's largest state has something to boast about -- he has the vital statistics of every village in his state stored on hard disc.
Digvijay Singh has worked hard to ensure that the central state of Madhya Pradesh is one of a handful of states to have Internet access in each of its districts, with details about each village stored in computers.
The charismatic, 52-year-old son of a pre-independence nobleman has deftly balanced Gandhian philosophy of giving power to villages with a modernisation drive based on information technology.
''We have always felt that Mahatma Gandhi's 'Gram Swaraj' (village self-rule) is the key to India's success. We have given more and more powers to the people,'' Singh told Reuters in an interview. ''Let them do it rather than we doing it for them.''
''Technology has to be given to them rather than we doing it for them,'' Singh says. ''We provide the funds, the technology back-up, we train them and ask them to implement and supervise.''
Singh is often compared to Chandrababu Naidu, the computer-savvy chief minister and ''chief executive officer'' of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, who has earned his state's capital, Hyderabad, the nickname ''Cyberabad.''
Singh's drive has struck a chord in his poverty-troubled state, where he was re-elected against the odds in local elections last year. He was the only chief minister of four states which went to the polls at that time to keep his job.
Reluctant to blow his own trumpet, Singh attributes his success to the policies of the centrist Congress party, currently the main opposition party in New Delhi.
''It depends on how faithfully you implement those policies. The policies are right. I don't think Digvijay Singh on his own could have done it. It is because of the right policies, the right implementation, the right kind of team that we could do it.''
Singh, who climbed from the presidency of a city municipal board to chief of the mineral-rich state, expects Congress and its allies to form the federal government after September-October elections to the 545-seat lower house of parliament.
''We will certainly win the elections. The Congress party will get more than 200 seats in parliament. We shall form the government. We may get complete majority also.''
In Madhya Pradesh, he expects to win 25 of the 40 seats.
A simple parliamentary majority is needed for a party or a coalition to form the government.
Singh hit out at Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party for its handling of the Kashmir crisis.
''People have seen through the BJP performance. The government has failed on the Kargil front. The government has not delivered. The government has been compromising with basic policies of the country. Kargil was a complete intelligence failure,'' he said.
Singh said the Kashmir conflict, which ground to a close at the weekend after heavy loss of life, would be a major poll issue. ''We restrained ourselves till it was over. Now we will do it,'' he said.
Singh has been aggressively wooing foreign investment for his state which has surged to sixth place on the list of those attracting foreign investment. ''Whenever the opportunity is there we are pushing for it,'' he said.
Singh said he had also fulfilled most of the promises he had made to the large tribal population in Madhya Pradesh. ''We have faithfully implemented all our policies as far as tribals are concerned, that is what has kept them on our side,'' he said.
|
