The Prime Minister said that he wishes to focus not only on the work being done by the government, but also on its work culture.
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Narendra Modi said his government has not allowed the rate of price rise to cross 6% as opposed to the double-digit inflation during the previous regime. Referring to a picture in which cameras caught Union minister Arun Jaitley and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s eyes shut at Red Fort, Sisodia said it seemed that Modi’s speech was really “boring”. A spike in the prices of pulses was a matter of concern, he said, adding that the area under pulses cultivation has increased 1.5 times (kharif sowing is 33% over last year).
He said the goods and services tax (the constitutional Bill on which was passed by Parliament recently), replacing a raft of different central and state levies, will strengthen growth efforts and make the economy more predictable.
“Now we give refunds online and it is given in weeks”, Modi said.
Modi said the government is more attentive to substance, rather than symbolism; integrated development rather than isolated development; and empowerment rather than entitlement. “And for this we have laid emphasis on food processing and 100 per cent foreign direct investment has been encouraged”, he said, adding this will boost farm-based industries. Slowly the farmers started to plan according to the soil health cards and many told me that their expenses have come down by nearly 25% and the production has increased by 30%, he said.
“In fact, while income tax refunds used to take forever earlier, it takes no more than three weeks today”.
“This is not an incremental change but a high jump”.
To conserve power, the government has taken up distribution of LED bulbs on a massive scale and price of the same has been brought down to Rs 50 from Rs 350 previously, he said adding 13 crore bulbs have been distributed so far.
Stressing that 70 crore people now have Aadhaar cards, he said 21 crore people have been connected with the financial inclusion scheme with opening of bank accounts under Jan Dhan Yojana.
Of the 18,000 unelectrified villages, power has reached 10,000, he said citing the example of Nagla Padam village which is a three hours drive from the national capital and has been without electricity since Independence.
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Speaking to ANI here, Khurshid said that the Prime Minister should not use the occasion to discriminate or play petty politics, but to unite the nation.
