Previous govt didn’t tap potential: PM
Positive mindset and approach needed to change things, says Modi at LU foundation day event
LUCKNOW : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the previous government did not make the most of the country’s potential and mentioned the rail coach factory in Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency in this regard.
Asserting that “positive mindset and approach are needed to change things,” he laid stress on realising “our full potential to ensure development of the nation”.
The prime minister was speaking at the Lucknow University foundation day event via video link on Wednesday during the university’s ongoing centennial year celebrations.
“For long, it has been a problem that we have not utilised our potential to the full. In the past, it was also true for the governance of our country. We have tried to change this after coming to power,” he said.
“The rail coach factory in Rae Bareli is an example of how we can change things by changing our outlook. The factory was set up many years ago and had all the machinery to make train coaches, yet only denting-painting (maintenance) was done there. Tall promises were made for the factory, but nothing changed. When we came to power in 2014, we looked into the affairs and, within six months, the factory started making rail coaches. It is now one of the biggest coach manufacturers in the country,” he said.
Modi was elected Prime Minister in 2014 when the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) defeated the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). The prime minister won a second term in 2019.
“I was surprised to know that despite having sufficient urea plants, the country was importing urea only because our plants were not working to their full potential. The previous governments had not done much to change this. When we came to power, we made changes, and now the country has become self-reliant in urea,” he said.
Will-power and good intentions were equally important as
capabilities, he said.
He also talked about his experience of popularising khadi with the help of students in Gujarat through a fashion show at Porbandar on Gandhi Jayanti in 2002.
This made khadi “fashionable”, he said, adding that the amount of khadi sold in the last six years was more than that sold in 20 years before 2014.