'Kalyana K'taka is developing, our top focus is on education'

Rithu Dravid | NT

Bengaluru: In an exclusive interview with News Trail, Dr. Ajay Dharam Singh, President of Kalyana Karnataka Region Development Board (KKRDB), spoke about taking forward the legacy of his father late Dharam Singh, Former CM of Karnataka.

He said the Congress party does not believe in polarization and also spoke of the contributions of the region's prominent personalities like former CMs Veerendra Patil and Dharam Singh and the incumbent President of the Indian National Congress, Mallikarjun Kharge, who are influential figures in Karnataka politics.

Here are excerpts:

Q: Have you benefited from the legacy of your father, late Dharam Singh?

Definitely, people know me today not as Ajay Singh , but as Ajay Dharam Singh. So, obviously it's a legacy that I am taking forward.

My father joined the Congress Party in 1969. For 48 years till his last breath he was a Congressman.

Q: As President of Kalyana Karnataka Region Development Board (KKRDB), what are the areas you feel the region lags behind?

Ours is a very backward region. The Dr Nanjundappa Committee Report highlighted the backwardness of the region.

Later the Dharam Singh Committee recommended the establishment of a development board for Kalyana Karnataka.

Q: The KKRDB, was a defunct board earlier, how do you plan to revive it and achieve inclusive growth?

Yes, it was a defunct board till 2013. With the Constitutional Amendment Act under Article 371-J, a separate development board for the Hyderabad- Karnataka region (now Kalyana Karnataka) was set up after which we are seeing comprehensive development of the region happening slowly.

We focus both on social and non-social activities. Non-social activities involve roadways (concrete roads, tar roads), drainage and bridges with 60 percent of funds being spent on these.

Social activities are related to education, health etc.

The board was allotted a grant of 3000 crores and we have distributed 87 percent (2610 crores) for various development plans amongst MLAs according to the CCBI index in a fair and transparent manner.

The previous boards did not use the funds appropriately and hence they faced many allegations.

We are spending 25 percent of the funds on education. Places like Yadgir, Raichur and Kalaburagi ranked at 35th, 31st and 28th place overall in standard ten results.

We have started an initiative called ‘Akshara Avishkara Vision 100’ wherein we try and improve the education system across seven districts of the Kalyana Karnataka region.

And this year we have a pass percentage of 90.72 after the implementation of the ‘Akshara Avishkara Vision 100’.

Q: How can the board create employment opportunities and promote entrepreneurship in the region?

We plan to launch the ‘ Udyoga Avishkara’, a special pilot project empowering the youth of Kalyana Karnataka through skill development and employment opportunities in 10 days.

The vision of the program is to provide training to 10,000 students with degrees (BA, BCom, BSc, BCA, BE etc).

This initiative will prepare the young population for the future. . We are collaborating with Karnataka Skill Development Corporation (KSDC) and International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) as they have promised to provide around 40 to 50 percent of jobs.

Q: Any specific goals/ targets the board has set for itself for the future?

We plan to set aside Rs 500 crores for sanitation work in Kalyana Karnataka region every year.

We have a vision to improve areas like education, health, sanitation etc. Until and unless we focus on these specific areas, there will be no scope for development in the region.

It has the least number of Public Health Centres (PHCs) in the state. We have a total of 346 PHCs in our region as compared to Mysore having a total of 646 PHCs.

We have been struggling to get PHCs for the past four to five months. Hopefully, 33 more PHCs will be granted by the state government.

Personally, my dream projects are in the areas of health and sanitation, education and employment. We will also be focusing on infrastructure development.