Rural development to script our growth: PM

The transformation of Indian agriculture and rural India will be the greatest development saga of the next quarter century, Prime Minister (PM) Manmohan Singh said today, and added that new measures to achieve this end, such as the concept of rural business hubs, will receive adequate attention in the 11th Five-Year Plan.

"We have to evolve location-specific and environment-friendly strategies of rural industrialisation and urbanisation in our quest for sustainable and equitable development," Singh said while speaking on 'Logistics for Global Competitive Advantage and Rural Growth' at the two-day global logistic summit organised by the Indian School of Business (ISB).

He  pointed out that production, financing, marketing, and logistics possibilities of rural India will require new, innovative approaches, new tools of analysis and new solutions.

"Logistics is, above all, about managing people. We need to have a logistics model that reaches out to the potential in rural India, a model which delivers access for rural produce to our urban, industrial markets," Singh pointed out.