New Delhi, Aug 14(UNI) President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday said it is vital that the Government build social infrastructure in the form of a comprehensive healthcare programme and legal infrastructure by enacting laws that advance gender equality, as well as by removing obsolete statutes to make life easier for citizens.
Addressing the nation on the eve of 73rd Independence Day here, Mr Kovind said, the government can build social infrastructure in the form of a comprehensive healthcare programme, and facilities and provisions for the mainstreaming of Divyang fellow citizens.
The President said, 'What is more crucial is for society and for citizens to use and nurture this infrastructure – for the benefit of themselves and their families, and for the benefit of society and us all'.
For example, he said, rural roads and better connectivity have meaning only if farmers use them to reach bigger markets and get better prices for their produce. Fiscal reforms and easier regulations for business have 'meaning only if our entrepreneurs, whether small start-ups or big industrialists, use these to build honest and imaginative enterprises and create sustainable jobs.'
Universal availability of toilets and household water have meaning only if they empower the women of India, enhance their dignity and become a catalyst for them to go out into the world and achieve their ambitions. They can achieve their ambitions as they choose: as mothers and homemakers – and as professionals and individuals with their own destiny.

To cherish and safeguard such infrastructure – that belongs to each one of us, the people of India – is to secure another aspect of the nation's hard-won freedom, the President said. Civic-minded Indians, he added, should respect and take ownership of such facilities and such infrastructure. And when they do so, they display the same spirit and resolve as the valiant men and women who serve in the nation's Armed Forces and paramilitary and police forces.
The President added, 'Whether you guard our nation at the frontiers or check that hand before it throws a stone at a passing train or any other public property – just like that, for the sake of it; or perhaps in anger– in some measure you protect a shared treasure. This is not just a matter of obeying laws; it is of answering to an inner conscience.'
UNI AE RP 1912