'Improvement in education is must to produce better citizens'

The newly appointed divisional commissioner of Pune, Prabhakar Deshmukh, has decided to focus on the improvement of primary education in the district. For this, Deshmukh will draw up a holistic plan for the overall development of the students, which will involve the parents, teachers, villagers and others.  Deshmukh’s agenda also includes improvement of watershed areas of the district and the state of primary health centres in the division. Partha Sarathi Biswas spoke to him to know more about his plans.

Tell us how will you improve the primary education in the division?
Qualitative improvement of primary education is of utmost importance for overall development of the rural areas in the division. In order to provide better education to their children, villagers are forced to migrate to cities, which leads to growth of the slums. Also, overall improvement of education is necessary to produce better citizens for tomorrow.
We intend to go with a holistic approach at the village levels. A special village committee involving villagers, teachers and parents would be formed to chalk out the curriculum necessary for imparting education to the children. The central government has given a substantial grant of Rs300 crore for qualitative improvement of education in the villages. We will be training the teachers to improve the quality of education. A comprehensive plan would be drawn up soon for this purpose.

What are your plans for improving health-related infrastructure in the rural areas?
In the division, the commissionarate is responsible for the health of those people residing in the rural areas and the areas which come under the municipal councils, zilla parishad and others. We have plans to increase the number of out patient departments in the rural areas and also to equip them with proper facilities.

Places in Pune division like Sangli, Satara and Kolhapur are infamous for illegal sex determinations tests. How do you plan to tackle the same?
Improving the sex ratio across the division would be given utmost importance. We are also planning to reduce the mother to child mortality rate. Soon, a comprehensive plan would be drawn up for the division. Along with the health department, we will also involve other shareholders to implement the same.

Some portions of the division, especially in the districts of Satara and Sangli, are known for being drought prone. How do you plan to address this?
The only solution to avoid scarcity of water is by improving the watershed areas of the region. A three-pronged approach will be taken, which would involve improvement of watershed areas, constructions of control bunds and comparative bunding in areas. All the three measures would be implemented at the same time, which will not only address the problem of water scarcity, but also generate employment opportunities in the rural areas.