IANS
New Delhi, Feb 16: Sounding alarm bells that India is nowhere close to meeting the United Nations goals to eradicate poverty, illiteracy and improving health, a senior UN advisor Monday urged Indian industries to pitch in.
Babu Lal Jain, who was recently appointed senior advisor to the United Nations Office for Partnerships, also announced that the international body would soon launch an 'MDG (millennium development goals) campaign' in the country's 543 parliamentary constituencies.
"My role is to mobilise the corporate sector to participate in achieving the MDGs. Without their participation the said goals can't be achieved," Jain said at a press conference.
With the MDG campaign, Jain hopes to rope in corporates and utilize information technology to enable services even in far flung areas in order to counter poverty and hunger, aid education and improve health care.
For this, Jain said, he has the support of the Union Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Kurshid, in whose electoral constituency the campaign will be piloted.
"We start in his (Kurshid's) constituency Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh by setting up 10 schools. For the campaign we will carry out a diagnostic to see where each of the 543 constituency stand on MDG targets. Then the corporations will be urged to adopt MDGs and work towards achieving them," Jain told IANS.
Jain, who is a senior member in at the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) and president of the World BPO Forum says he wants to tap the corporate social responsibility clauses in businesses effectively.
The campaign, Jain said, would not seek funds from the government or participating companies, but just "ensure their participation".
"We will monitor how to effectively go about it".
He added: "Information technology and enabling services will be the tools that we need to accelerate as proves of reaching the MDGs. There is great economic activity and business development in the MDG sector which could be very strong growth engines for India's economic development."