Friday, January 14 2005 18:18 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Lucknow: Stressing the need to develop rural India, President A P J Abdul Kalam today (Jan 14, 2005) said the country will be able to stake claim to the developed status only if the villages have basic amenities similar to the urban areas.

The President, who surprised his audience by addressing them in Hindi during his visit to a school at village Rudhai in the city outskirts, said, "To make India a developed nation, it was essential to ensure common education to all, besides ensuring availability of drinking water, electricity and roads, which are the basic requirements of the people."

"Seventy per cent of the population of our country lived in villages and only by ensuring facilities for the rural areas like those available in our cities, we would be able to claim India as a developed country," Kalam said.

Kalam, who is on a day-long visit to the State capital, also interacted with the students.

"The Government is committed to bringing the standard of living in villages similar to that being availed in our cities," the President, who generally sticks to English, said at a village gathering in Hindi.

"To make India a developed nation, it was essential to ensure common education to all besides ensuring availability of drinking water, electricity and roads, which are the basic requirements of the people."

Kalam stressed the need to give fillip to the agriculture sector and also for ameliorating the lot of labourers and farmers, besides ensuring protection to the rights of our children so that they could be provided proper education.

The President also administered his eight-point oath to the children in Hindi stressing on the need of being educated and becoming model citizens.

The President exhorted the students to follow the guidelines meant for health and prosperity. He asked them to adhere to family planning norms and plant five saplings each, for a clean environment.

He emphasised that the Government should complete the projects which cater to the basic requirements of the people on priority basis.

"Cooperation of all countrymen was of paramount importance, as the Government alone would not be able to achieve the aim of making the country self-reliant and developed," Kalam said.