Union ministers Anurag Thakur and Ashwini Vaishnaw released a booklet listing Modi government’s achievements.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said he was humbled to have been given the opportunity to fulfil the aspirations of 1.4 billion Indians, as many people on Twitter wrote about the achievements of his government on its ninth anniversary.
“Since morning, I am seeing many Tweets on #9YearsOfModiGovernment in which people are highlighting what they have appreciated about our Government since 2014. It is always humbling to receive such affection and it also gives me added strength to work even harder for the people. We have covered much ground in the last 9 years and we want to do even more in the times to come so that we can build a strong and prosperous India in the Amrit Kaal,” Modi wrote on Twitter.
Union ministers Anurag Thakur and Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday released a booklet called “Amrit Kal – This is our Time, This is India’s Time” while inaugurating the national conclave of the 9th anniversary of the National Democratic Alliance government.
The booklet documents the achievements and developmental work undertaken by the Union government across different sectors in the past nine years, which include construction of over 11 crore toilets, opening 48.82 crore bank accounts under the Jan Dhan Yojana, building three crore homes under the PM Awas Yojana, providing 11.64 crore rural water connections, registering 208% growth in gig economy jobs, running the world’s largest food security programme by feeding over 80 crore citizens, making health care accessible by bringing 23 crore families under the Ayushman Bharat Health scheme, opening 390 new universities and institutes like Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, opening airports, laying metro tracks across cities, conducting the world’s largest vaccination drive for Covid-19, opening new All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences facilities across states, nullifying Article 370 from the Constitution and allocating nearly ₹500 crore for defence startups.
Other achievements listed in the booklet include the foundation laying ceremony of Ram Mandir in 2020, a proposed 889-km national highway under the Char Dham NH connectivity programme and the 4016 km road projects in the northeast.
At the inauguration of the national conclave called ‘9 Saal – Seva, Sushasan, Gareeb Kalyan’, Vaishnaw, the minister of railways, communication and IT, compared his government’s work since 2014 with that of the previous governments.
“When people spoke about India 10 years ago, the word scam was always attached to it, unfortunately. Whether it was the Commonwealth Games or the auction of spectrum, the system developed was such that people were embarrassed because of these scams,” he said. “The economy that Atal ji (former prime minister Atal Bihari Bajpayee) had given to the country in 2004 was destroyed by 2014. By 2014, India’s economy had come under the list of the fragile five,” he said.
Vaishnaw spoke about India’s vaccination drive during the pandemic. “The government held a massive vaccination drive of 220 crore. This is equivalent to the entire population of the US, Japan and Europe, multiplied by two. That is the number of people we vaccinated,” he said.
Vaishnaw said domestic infrastructure has seen an unprecedented makeover since 2014. He cited the creation of 74 airports in nine years, a figure matching the number created till 2014. Whereas 91,000 km of road were created since Independence, almost 54,000 km have been constructed since 2014, he added.
“India has gone from having no waterways till 2014 to having 111 waterways today. Nobody envisaged the use of waterways,” the minister said. “The metro rail, which is the most affordable mode of commuting for middle class, was present in only five cities. In these nine years, the government has built metros in 15 more cities. There were seven AIIMS until 2014. Atal ji has sanctioned six AIIMS. After PM Modi took charge, the government constructed 15 more AIIMS across the country.”
India had lagged in world economic rankings for a long time and was tagged in the fragile five economies in 2014, before the present government took over, Vaishnaw said. “Today, India stands tall as the 5th largest economy. India is well on its way to becoming the 4th largest economy in another two years, and the third largest in another six years,” he added.
Thakur, the minister of information and broadcasting, said that while only a specific group of people benefited from different schemes, the current government has ensured that even the last person in the line benefits from welfare programmes.
”Using technology, with accountability and transparency, we have ensured last-mile delivery of all services. The government works with the motto of antyodaya to uplift the last person standing in the queue. This is to bring a positive change in the life of our citizens,” he said, citing the example of the government providing tap water to over 12 crore homes.
The Union government provided tap water connection in places of Ladakh at over 17,000 feet even as some places in the national capital have to depend on water tankers, he said.
The government has been steadfast in shedding legacies of the colonial past and adopting modern and domestic symbols, Thakur said, citing examples of the government changing the name of Rajpath to Kartavya Path and erecting the statue of Subhash Chandra Bose where once stood the statue of British king George V.
Source : Hindustan Times
