It's a vote for new agenda: CM

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, NOV. 18. The Chief Minister, Mr. S. M. Krishna, has said that he considered the results of the elections to the BMP Council as a mandate to him to strive to make Bangalore cleaner and greener.

Mr. Krishna was inaugurating a four-day International Consultative Workshop on ``Partnership towards unity for Health to Achieve Social Responsibility'' here on Sunday. It has been organised by the Commonwealth Association for Mental Handicap and Developmental Disabilities and the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences.

The Chief Minister said he only wanted to lift the City from the morass into which it had fallen over the years. He utilised the occasion to take on those who spoke lightly of his aim that Bangalore should emulate Singapore in civic standards. It was interesting that the critics were intellectuals.

Hitting out at them, Mr. Krishna said those who spat and smoked in public and threw garbage into neighbour's compound were asking when he would make Bangalore another Singapore. He wanted to develop a new culture and a character in Bangalore. Turning to the former Union Minister and Congress leader, Mr. Vasanth Sathe, who had spoken earlier, Mr. Krishna said Bangalore was a better place when Mr. Sathe visited it for the first time. But today it was suffering from the pangs of growth.

Mr. Krishna did not agree with the view expressed earlier by Mr. Sathe that the progress achieved in the field of health and medical care since Independence was on account of the governments at the Centre and the States. He said it could not have been achieved without the cooperation of the non-government organisations.

Mr. Vasanth Sathe said the State governments should take the credit for the progress in the field of health as health was a State subject. The Government should continue to play an important role in the field, he said referring to what he called the euphoria regarding privatisation.

In his keynote address, Mr. Colin Ball, Director, Commonwealth Foundation, said that for the first time the workshop was being held outside London.

Dr.V.R.Pandurangi, International Coordinator of the Commonwealth Association, welcomed the gathering.

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