CEO of Vision 2025 addresses district-level workshop
Commending the State government’s initiative to have extensive people’s consultations with the people in the preparation of Vision 2025 document, Ms. Renuka Chidambaram, Principal Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of Vision 2025, said that people’s participation in policy making would always result in better policies and governance. She was addressing at the inaugural session of a district-level consultative workshop on Vision 2025 organised at the district administrative complex here on Tuesday.
“Policy documents were thus far prepared by a few in the Vidhana Soudha. Now, for the first time, a more democratic method of involving people in preparation of the policy document has been adopted. We are approaching people from all walks of life and regions to let them have their say. Though many States have already created such documents, Karnataka is the first to adopt a participative method in preparation of a vital document,” she said.
Pointing at the rationale behind the initiative, Ms. Chidambaram said that encouraging all stakeholders to give their ideas from their individual as well as collective perspectives and incorporating their valuable suggestions would result in a better document. “We in the bureaucratic apparatus normally think that we are right in everything. We seldom bother about what people think. We formulate policies and impose on them. It is wrong. Each individual have his/her own opinion about everything. People have their own vision as to how our society should function. It is clearly evident by diverse opinions expressed soon after the presentation of budget in the legislature. We need to develop a mechanism to have people their say on matters of governance and incorporate them in the policies.”
Expressing the government’s intention to reach out to maximum number of people and hear from them, Ms. Chidambaram said that multiple methods including having district- level consultative workshops and collecting ideas online were being employed to involve people to express their ideas and suggestions on how they wanted the State to be by 2025. She called upon the people not to simply set unachievable targets on particular issues, but provide practicable way to achieve the goals.
“One can ideally desire to have all children in schools by 2025 ensuring that no child is out of school. To achieve it, we need to ensure that parents have good income and are economically stable enough not to compel their children to come out of school and work in fields and factories. We need to provide useful ideas to address such multiple factors associated with single goal,” she added.
Regional Commissioner Harsh Gupta, Deputy Commissioner R. Venkatesh Kumar, Zilla Panchayat CEO Hephsiba Rani Korlapati, City Corporation Commissioner P. Sunilkumar, Mayor Sharnu Modi and others were present.
