Fruits of progress are now reaching the poorest: Modi

Says his govt ended the culture of bribery

AHMEDABAD: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated development projects worth over ₹2,300 crore on his whirlwind Gujarat tour on Thursday, and reasserted that his government had provided corruption-free benefits to the people of India and had cut out the middlemen who siphoned funds in previous regimes.

Modi’s daylong visit to his home state — he attended three events in the state and a meeting of the Somnath Trust — were in line with the government’s concerted effort to showcase its welfare schemes ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Bringing up a statement by former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi that if the Centre released one rupee, only 15 paise reached the poor, Modi said that the era of middlemen in fund disbursement was over. “If ₹1 is released by Delhi, 100 paise reaches the poor,” he said. Making rural

If one rupee is released from Delhi, the entire 100 paise (now) reaches the house of the poor... This was made possible because there is no place for middlemen in my government. NARENDRA MODI, Prime Minister

housing the centrepiece of his visit, the prime minister presided over a collective e-grahpravesh (e-house warming) at Jujwa village in south Gujarat’s Valsad for units constructed under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojanagramin (PMAY-G). He interacted through videoconference with beneficiaries from 26 of the 33 districts of Gujarat.

Modi said in his speech that the government now was confident enough to ask people whether they had to bribe anyone to get benefits of the housing scheme. “They are happy to receive full share of their right,” he said.

Modi claimed that not a single family in the country will be homeless by 2022, when India will celebrate its 75th independence anniversary. Targets have been set to complete 10 million new pucca houses in rural areas by March 2019 and 29.5 million by 2022 under the government’s ‘Housing for All’ scheme.