A strategy for rural development:

Is ‘PURA’ the solution for minimising urban-rural divide?

By Lionel WIJESIRI

Former Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam recently proposed implementing his concept of Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA), which envisages providing urban amenities to rural areas as a key strategy for rural development in Sri Lanka. PURA envisages provision of physical, electronic and knowledge connectivities leading to economic recovery using rural skills and competence.

It was an excellent idea. I expected a broad discussion to emerge among rural policy planners, community planners, social service organisations and NGOs about this concept, but it did not happen. This brief article is intended to rouse that interest.

As stated in the Economic Policy Framework of the Government, Sri Lanka’s rural development strategy is based on pro-poor pro-growth income improvement and redistribution policies with participation of a socially responsible private sector and a strong public sector. The Government has understood that higher economic growth alone is not sufficient to reduce poverty; instead it should focus on pro-poor growth strategies.

A sustainable six to eight percent growth in real income is targeted over the next five years. This in turn requires raising investment to around 35 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Such investments include domestic and foreign investment as well as public investment. The ultimate objective is to ensure that Sri Lanka steadily progresses towards upper middle-income country status within the next 10 years.

The National Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (NPRGS) is the major Government policy approach to navigate pro-poor pro-growth, income and redistribution strategies. There are five main objectives of this strategy:

(a) to facilitate poor groups to engage in productive economic activities (b) give them income support during the transition period (c) reduce the poverty gap between different social strata (d) minimise regional variations in the incidence of poverty and (e) to narrow regional disparities in development.

In the process of the implementation of these policy interventions and their translation into development strategies, poor segments of society and other vulnerable groups will be encouraged to be active partners in the mainstream development process.

Rural development

Any public policy formulation requires an enlightened political will and a mighty vision to meet the desired objectives. After Independence in 1948, many novel and innovative policies were formulated as well as implemented successfully. The ‘agricultural strategy’ which was pivotal in making Sri Lanka almost self-sufficient in rice is one such example.

At the same time, there were policies such as the one on ‘forest conservation’ with lofty and ambitious goals that failed miserably in reaping the desired objectives and goals.

However, nothing should deter the policy makers from innovating and thinking out-of the-box solutions to combat the daunting socio-economic problems in Sri Lanka.

Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA), as recommended by the Former Indian President is another step which can become a path-breaking public policy in Sri Lanka. The primary objective of this scheme is to shore up the rural economy by bridging the huge rural-urban divide. It aims at providing urban amenities and livelihood sources in rural areas to check mass distress migration to urban areas and rapid unplanned urbanisation in Sri Lanka. Though the road to recovery is long, I believe, this is definitely a well thought out first step in the right direction.

PURA is a rural development program envisaged to be implemented in the much discussed framework of ‘public-private partnership’ (PPP). The scheme, if implemented, would be managed by the private sector on viability and sustainability, considerations which shall be fully aligned with the overall objective of rural development.

This framework of bringing together public funds and private capital into creation of infrastructure in rural areas and leveraging upon private sector expertise to manage and maintain the same during the concession period, forms the essence of the PURA Scheme.

Historical background

Dr. Kalam realised that the lack of livelihood opportunities, modern amenities and services for decent living in rural areas eventually lead to migration of people to urban areas.

He also understood that there are wide gaps in the availability of physical and social infrastructure between rural and urban areas. To address these issues, he highlighted a vision of transformation of rural India through the launch of a mega mission for provision of urban amenities in rural areas.

PURA was ideated as a self-sustainable and viable model of service delivery to be managed through an implementation framework between local people, public authorities and the private sector. The Government support would be in the form of finding the right type of management structure to develop and maintain rural infrastructure, empowering such management structure and providing initial economic support.

The scheme envisages twinning of rural infrastructure development with economic re-generation activities and is the first attempt at delivering a basket of infrastructure and amenities through Private-Public-Partnerships in the rural areas. It is an effort to provide a different framework for the implementation of rural infrastructure development schemes and harness private sector efficiencies in the management of assets and delivery of services.

PPP

The selected private partners will develop livelihood opportunities, urban amenities and infrastructure facilities to accepted service levels and be responsible for maintenance of the same for a specified period in rural areas.

Private sector entities having experience in development and management of community-oriented infrastructure projects will be selected through an open competitive bidding process based on rigorous qualifications and evaluation criteria.

The selected private partners would be required to provide amenities like water supply and sewerage, roads, drainage, solid waste management, street lighting and power distribution and undertake some economic and skills development activity. The private partners may also provide add-on revenue earning facilities such as village-linked tourism, integrated rural hub, rural market, agri-services centre and warehousing facilities in addition to the above mentioned amenities.

Funding for projects under the PURA scheme would come from four sources; Ministry of Rural Development schemes, other ministry sources who wish to invest, private financing and capital grants from the Central Government.

Recommendations

Talking about Sri Lanka, Dr. Kalam says that with 16 million rural citizens representing about 79 percent of the population, Sri Lanka has a potential of deploying about 160 PURA complexes based on the core competencies of the cluster of villages. He recommends that these may focus on the following aspects:

*Coastal PURA: Focusing on marine industry including sea fishing, processing, packaging and sales. Sri Lanka's vast coastlands can be organised into about 50 coastal PURA complexes, primarily focusing on fishing and also service industry of sea tourism.

*Plain PURA: Based on the inlands of Sri Lanka, we can realise about 60 plain PURA complexes, focusing on agro-products and processing such as rice and coconut, forest products, natural and medicinal tourism and IT.

*Hill PURA: There is a potential for creating about 50 hill PURA complexes. Suitable rainfall and weather conditions make them ideally suited for creating industry based on plantations.

The execution of such a PURA mission can be done in an entrepreneurial way, with Public-Private-Community Partnership model with active involvement from all the diverse societies of the nation.

Dr. Kalam has done his homework well, it seems. As he correctly says, there are many more detailed aspects which would go within each of the specific PURAs. A lot more thinking is needed. But the basic fact remains clear and intact. PURA, if implemented, sensibly will work for the benefit of rural masses in Sri Lanka.

Consider the amenities we can provide: Water and sewerage, construction and maintenance of village streets, drainage, solid waste management, skills development, development of economic activities, village-linked tourism, integrated rural hubs and rural markets, agri-services centres and warehousing are some of them.

It is expected that a scheme such as PURA, wherein all related schemes for rural infrastructure are being converged for a synchronised delivery for 10 years in project mode will maximise its socio-economic impact.

Maybe, time is the best judge regarding the success of an advanced scheme such as PURA in Sri Lanka. Such bold and innovative steps are needed today to zero in on the best-suited public policy in the long run for the rural development in Sri Lanka.