Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Krishna Byre Gowda has said that many myths regarding partnership with government on social enterprises were owing to the lack of understanding of how the government functioned.
Participating in a keynote panel on ‘Reimagining Impact’ on the inaugural day of ‘Development Dialogue’ here on Saturday, Mr. Gowda said that the myths were born from the experience of those who had approached the government, with their projects, without understanding the nuances of administration and without doing their homework properly.
Mr. Gowda also said that another reason for the myths was “the television”.
The Minister said: “The intention of a person or an organisation approaching the government for taking up a social entrepreneurship project might be good. But, if they have not done their groundwork properly then they would be told that the government would look into it”. He said that it was the government which could help any organisation with a good social welfare project to scale up. “We need innovations and ideas from these organisations and they could be implemented through the government set-up,” he said.
Concurring with him, Chief Secretary of Karnataka T.M. Vijay Bhaskar said that working with the government was needed if the organisations wanted to have scalability.
“The government will always accept innovations for the public good,” he said.
Co-founder of Infosys N.R. Narayana Murthy said the government will partner with organisations or individuals if their project was in the public interest.
Referring to his experience of working with the government on social entrepreneurship projects, he said: “As the governments have to spend public money, there will be elaborate procedures before the final approval is given and it is needed in public interest. I have received full cooperation from Ministers under different governments.”
Head of Piramal Foundation Paresh S. Parasnis said that NGOs could help the government in ensuring efficiency in several of the programmes that were already being implemented by the government.
