Private funds vital for millennium goals, says FM

Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said India needed a large dose of private sector participation to fund the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

"We need to develop indigenous private-public partnership (PPP) models to make progress. If panchayats become empowered, initiatives in rural India can be effective," Chidambaram said at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS) here.

India would be able to fulfill two or three of the MDGs, the finance minister said. However, in case of water and related areas, private sector participation and funding was vital, he added.

Chidambaram expressed concern over the diminishing focus towards the MDGs. Out of the eight MDGs agreed to by all the countries, only those which had to fulfill them were concerned and the concern was diminishing, Chidambaram said.

"For the private sector to participate there has to be a commercial model. In the agriculture sector, India is seeing a lot of action. In addition to food processing, corporates are getting active in the sourcing of agricultural goods and with organised retailing catching on, the complete value chain is being developed," Rajesh Srivastava, managing director, head of north India, Rabo India Finance, who participated in the summit, said.

The eight MDGs, ranging from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV, AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015, form a blueprint agreed to by all the world's countries and leading development institutions.

Chidambaram also spoke on water being the key to rural India's sustainability and the need for users to be aware of the growing criticality of water shortage.