By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: Union Minister of Railways Shri Ashwini Vaishnav on Saturday inaugurated the National Conclave: 9 Saal – Seva, Sushasan, Gareeb Kalyan at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi. The event witnessed the presence of Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Shri Anurag Thakur, Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Dr L Murugan, Secretary, Min of Information and Broadcasting Apurva Chandra and CEO, Prasar Bharati, Gaurav Dwivedi were also present on the occasion.
Union Minister Shri Ashwini Vaishnav made a comparative presentation juxtaposing the performance of the governments before 2014 with the government since and said while the previous governance efforts had become synonymous with scams, the current Government works with the ethos of ‘Pai Pai Se Gareeb Ki Bhalai’ (every penny for the benefit of the poor). This has been reflected in the way schemes and programmes have been implemented keeping the poor and the destitute as its central pillar, he added.
The Minister underlined that owning a house is a factor that brings a transformative change in a poor person’s life. To that end, today 3.5 crore houses have been constructed in the country under PM Awas Yojana bringing qualitative change in the lives of the poor.
The Minister said that the idea of connecting every house with piped water connection was always considered a behemoth, never to be attempted or achieved. But, he added, the Prime Minister took it up as a challenge and today 12 crore people have water connections. At the same time, he said the Government has strived to end the travesty that was traditional chulhas and provided 9.6 crore families with gas cylinders.
He further spoke about the efforts of the government to come through for the people in need and said that when the world was struggling to fight the travails of the COVID19 pandemic, the government overcame massive logistical challenges to bring free ration to 80 crore people. No government has spoken of fundamental human needs, like toilets, that are the indicators of inclusive growth, during Independence Day speeches. But PM Modi spoke about the construction of toilets in every house in his speech from Red Fort. This has caused a revolution in the field of women safety and sanitation with the construction of 11.72 crore toilets today.
Shri Vaishnav said that India today runs the world’s largest healthcare insurance programme under Ayushman Bharat that has created provisions for free medicare up to Rs five lakh for the needy, the total coverage which is more than the population of the USA and Russia combined.
Shri Vaishnav credited the Prime Minister with creating a new definition of social justice taking it away from appeasement and towards empowerment.
The Minister said that domestic infrastructure has seen an unprecedented makeover since 2014, which was largely missing earlier due to a lack of proper mindset and thought process in the past. He cited the creation of 74 airports in 9 years, a figure matching the number created till 2014. He added that where 91 thousand kilometers of road were created since independence, almost 54 thousand kilometers have been constructed since 2014. India has gone from having no waterways till 2014 to having 111 waterways today and India’s railway stations have world-class facilities like airports.
The Minister said that India had lagged in world economic rankings for a long time, but today India stands tall as the 5th largest economy. He further said that India is well on its way to becoming the 4th largest economy in another two years and the third largest in another six years.
The Minister spoke about the government’s strong commitment to national security and said that when in past India has been at the receiving end of major terror activities, today the country has the means and willingness to respond to attacks in kind.
