Government to set up innovation fund: PM

New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday announced that the government would set up an 'Innovation Fund' to promote innovation in governance at the grass-root level and establish national awards for outstanding public service.

Addressing District Collectors, who had gathered here for a two-day national conference, the Prime Minister asked them to be ''modest and lead decent but simple life-styles, eschewing conspicuous consumption and extravagant living.''

Singh told the Collectors that fighting the forces of social and communal divisiveness, casteism and regionalism and other anti-national forces and tendencies ''in our body politic'' was not just their constitutional obligation, but ''a sacred duty in the interests of our nation and nationhood, our posterity and our prosperity.'' ''Constitution is supreme and you are duty-bound to uphold it. The values of our republic are sacred and we must work together to protect and preserve them,'' he told the civil servants.

The Conference, which was the first of its kind held to review the impact of various programmes at the district level and discuss improvement of the delivery system, concluded today with the participants agreeing that implementing agencies be strengthened at the district level and homeless and poor be taken care of while undertaking town and country planning.

The Conference also suggested that instead of looking at North East as a land-locked area, its potential as a source of trade and commerce with South-East Asia needed to be tapped.

Importance of stable law and order situation for development was also stressed.

The Prime Minister asked the Collectors to be ''partisan -- partisan towards the poor, the weaker sections, minorities, women and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and all such disadvantaged people who need support of the state.'' Giving reasons for his advice, he said this was necessary ''in order to be ethically neutral in a context of inequality'' in the society that had several prejudices.

While being sensitive to the imperatives of democracy and majority rule, the civil servants must be alert to ''minority opinion''. You must learn not merely to tolerate but respect dissent because your job requirement was that of forging a consensus among contentious claimants,'' Dr Singh said.

Appealing to them to have an abiding commitment to social equity, particularly for the marginalised sections of society and work to make them partners in economic progress, he said the attitude they have to bear as a head of the district was what would be emulated by the people who worked with them.

Stating that every section of society must be able to benefit from the process of reform, he said this would mean immediate attention to issues of agriculture, rural development, health, education, infrastructure, focusing on the weaker sections of the SCs, STs, women, minorities, disabled and all such disadvantaged categories and ensuring communal harmony.

The Prime Minister said the collectors were the ''critical agents'' for ensuring that the new deal to rural India genuinely transformed rural lives and livelihood and asked them to help realise the objectives of the Rs 1,74,000 crore Bharat Nirman programme. Under Bharat Nirman, the government had a target of providing 100 per cent connectivity to India's villages through roads, electricity and telecommunications and ensure 100 per cent coverage under safe water supply by 2009.

The government had similarly targeted programmes for universal elementary education, improvement of rural health through the National Rural Health Mission, universal coverage of mid-day meal, expanded coverage of the ICDS, agricultural transformation through the National Horticultural Mission and addressing food security through the Antyodaya Anna Yojana.

The Prime Minister told them that their job situation was so unique in that they had maximum power to do good in each of the places you work. ''You should make it an experience worth remembering.'' The country had much more resources today to ''change the world around us that we have had ever before''. We have an explosion of ideas. We have a society that is becoming increasingly more politicised and vigilant. These are opportunities not available to your predecessors.

''Therefore be idealistic enough to take up the challenge. Be innovative enough to look for new opportunities,'' he said.