The Central and State governments should accord greater priority to eradicating poverty in the country, G. Viswanathan, Chancellor, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), said in Vellore on Wednesday.Speaking at the Republic Day celebrations at the VIT campus after hoisting the national flag, Mr. Viswanathan said that India has been growing economically but the economic growth should increase significantly. “We need to attain a stage where we can say the country has no poor people in terms of complete economic independence. As per an estimate, the country has around 13 crore poor people. This signifies the importance of eradicating poverty by the joint efforts of the Central and the State governments,” he said.Further, the Chancellor said that the Central and State governments should also give more priority to the education sector as the country has to achieve more in higher education. “India’s Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) is only 26%, so we need to take more steps to increase GER in higher education and provide higher education to more people in the country by increasing funds for the higher education sector,” he added.

Terming agriculture as yet another priority sector for government, Mr. Viswanathan said that even though the country has been doing well in agriculture, there remains a lot of scope for improvement in the sector. “We are trying to evolve a model for agriculture in VIT through which we can help more farmers and lead the country,” he said.

VIT vice presidents Sankar Viswanathan and G.V. Selvam, pro-vice chancellor Dr. S. Narayanan, and registrar K. Sathiyanarayanan, participated in the celebrations.