He was speaking at the tri-deccenial celebration of Shree Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Programme (SKDRDP) at Amruthavarshina hall in Dharmasthala on Friday June 22.

He said that it would be of great help if all the rural training institutes are run under the leadsership of Dr Veerendra Heggade. The development of Dharmasthala should be an inspiration to all Indian states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Rajasthan and Jharkhand, he said.

Ramesh said naxal activities are on the rise in the Malnad regions. "It is very important that one should not support them and the state government should come forward to stop all these activities," he added.

"The development in Dakshina Kannada under rural self-employment groups is worthy of praise. Products and clothing in the market made by women self-help groups show the commendable development and it is also a source of their income," he said.

Minister for rural development and Panchayat Raj Jagadish Shettar released a book on rural development and said that there will be a road development programme in the state, under Prime Minister�s �Sadak� project. "In all, 75% of the fund from the central government and 25% from the state will be allotted for the project. The work done by the Dharmasthala-based NGO under the leadership of Dr Veerendra Heggade is exceptional. They have been carrying out improvements in health, education and infrastructural activities in the area.

Shree Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project (SKDRDP) will expand its operations in more Karnataka districts stated Dr Veerendra Heggade. More importance will be provided on promoting gobar-gas and solar units in the district. The programme conducted under Dharmasthala helps to work towards the up-lifting of the ruruals by self employment and various other programmes.

Dr Heggade said that the rural programmes across the state will be done through a monitoring cell.

MP Jayaprakash Heggade, MP Nalin Kumar Kateel and Prof J V Joshi spoke, and KM Joshi, rural development trustee was honoured on the occasion.

Hemavathi Veerendra Heggade, Abhayachandra Jain, MLA, Shailaja Bhat, zilla panchayat president, Dhanalaxmi Janardhan, Mamatha Shetty, taluk panchayat president, Prabhakar Poojary and B Jayaram Nellithaya among others were present on the occasion.

Director Dr LH Manjunath welcomed the gathering. Manorama Bhat and Manoj Menezes compered the programme.

Kudremukh Tiger Reserve

Union minister Jairam Ramesh has urged the chief minister to declare Kudremukh National Park and B R hills as a tiger reserve. In this regard a meeting has been organized with the chief minister.

Kudremukh National park consists of 1400 tribal families out of which 100 families have already left the place and 600 families are willing to leave. Families leaving the park area will be provided with a compensation of Rs ten lac and facilities like drinking water, roads and housing facilities will be granted.

As naxal activities are increasing in the Malnad region, the state government has urged the central government for Kudremukh to be a tiger reserve. There is an opposition from the local political parties too. It is a matter of urgency that families should be relocated and compensated adequately, Ramesh said.

He added that the Bhadra-Kudremukh corridor project would not be included in the tiger reserve. Central government has not taken any action for the memorandum submitted for tiger reserve and for the implementation of tiger reserve a sum of 250 crore is required.

Cleaner Dakshina Kannada

Dakshina Kanada has won the prestigious Nirmal Gram Award from the government as part of the �Total Sanitation Campaign�. The Clean India campaign has been implemented effectively.

There are 2.4 lac gram panchayats nationwide and in each of these panchayats, public toilets must be made available in order to be effectively sanitary. Open defecation-free states is what the government is looking at creating. States like Sikkim and Kerala standing second have already been declared as defeacation free. These states consist of toilets in every household. 19 gram panchayats in Kerala are yet to be declared as open defecation free.

Karnataka, Harayana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh should be the states working towards sanitation at its best.

The government has now decided to shift its focus on the gram panchayats rather than on single households as it seems to be more effective.