Ex-Prez inaugurates village infra projects

Former President Pranab Mukherjee shared the stage with Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar at an event in Harchandpur village, in Sohna, on Sunday to commemorate the expansion of the Pranab Mukherjee Foundation’s SmartGram initiative.

The SmartGram initiative, which Mukherjee launched in July 2016 during his presidency, began by adopting five villages in the state. Their health, power and education infrastructure was improved through small projects. In cooperation with the state government, the project will now encompass 100 villages. On Sunday, Mukherjee launched several initiatives in three of them, namely Harchandpur, Nayagaon and Alipur villages. “I believe it is not just cities, but also villages that can be smart. When that happens, we will be able to say that the country is making progress,” Mukherjee said, addressing a gathering of villagers in Harchandpur. The sentiment was also echoed by Khattar. “The spirit of India still resides in its villages, that is why we need to empower them,” he said.

In Harchandpur, through the initiative, a village secretariat called the gramalaya has been built using CSR funding from NBCC India Ltd. The gramalaya will act as a one-stop destination for addressing the administrative and infrastructural needs of the panchayat.

On the cards are Partner Processing Centres that will be built within the premises of the gramalaya with an aim to generate employment. These will have a khoya (milk product) processing centre and a flour mill located in Daulah village.

Similar projects were inaugurated in other villages as well. In Alipur, a Training and Innovation Warehouse was inaugurated to help local entrepreneurs test and develop products, while in Nayagaona a water ATM—a currency operated water dispensing machine—was opened to the public.

MoS Rao Inderjit Singh, PWD minister Rao Narbir Singh and MLA Sohna Tejpal Tanwar were also present at the launch.

First Published: Sep 03, 2018 04:57 IST