‘As world fought Covid, PM bolstered economy’
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foresight in initiating bold structural reforms helped the country’s economy to quickly bounce back from the pandemic shock and put India in a position to lead the world, Union home minister Amit Shah said on Saturday.
In his keynote address at the 19th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, Shah said Modi’s leadership saved thousands of lives from Covid-19, instilled self discipline in 1.3 billion citizens and transformed the mechanism of government welfare delivery, transforming the lives of 800 million beneficiaries.
“When the whole world was struggling with Covid, Modi started the process of undertaking reforms to boost the economy and advance national development. He had the vision that after the pandemic, India will be gifted with a great opportunity. He could visualise an impending global recession and helped stave it off in India,” Shah said.
He rattled off statistics to note how quickly India had shaken off the adverse impact of the pandemic -- GST collections rose from ₹1.05 lakh crore in the pre-Covid era to ₹1.3 lakh crore now, steel production increased from 9.3 million tonnes to 9.5 million tonnes, vehicle sales from 1.59 million to 1,8 million per month, tractor sales from 64,000 to 127,000, service PMI (purchasing managers’ index) from 57.6 to 58.4, manufacturing PMI from 54.5 to 55, eway bill from 2.1 million to 2,3 million, exports from about 27 billion dollars to 35 billion dollars, UPI transaction from 1.3 billion to 4.3 billion and forex reserves from 473 billion dollars to 640 billion dollars.
“We can see how quickly India’s economy is out of the shadow of the pandemic and is ready to take on global competition. This is the result of policy decisions taken by PM Modi. This helped India post the fastest recovery in the world and I am sure in the future, it will remain the fastest,” he added.
He said even after spending ₹15 lakh crore on health infrastructure, disbursing free grain to 800 million people and free vaccines to 1.3 billion people, the fiscal deficit was kept under discipline. “This is a big achievement. I am sure that India will take its rightful place in the world order and we will be able to fulfill Modi ji’s dream of becoming a five trillion dollar economy,” he said.
In 2019, PM Modi had set the goal of making India – whose economy is around 3 trillion dollars at present – a 5 trillion dollar economy by 2024-25.
In his address, Shah recalled the havoc wreaked by the second wave of the pandemic this summer and credited PM Modi for guiding the country through those testing times. The home minister said the country has seen governments of the Congress and the NDA at the Centre and in states and that of socialists and communists in states, now experts on the economy must give a comparison by data analysis as to which government performed better in ushering development.
“Under PM Modi’s leadership, India’s citizens fought every challenge and emerged victorious,” he said.
On the new coronavirus variant Omicron, he said that the government is keeping a close watch on related developments.
In the second wave when the oxygen emergency came up there was chaos for six-seven days, but the prime minister successfully faced the challenge by patiently arranging all available resources from across the globe, optimal use of domestic resources and communicating with district levels, he said. “The production capacity of oxygen in the country was 1,500 MT per day but our requirement was 15,000 MT per day. Within 10 days production was increased to 10 times under Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said.
In order to boost economic activities after the pandemic, Modi made policy reforms to improve manufacturing in the country, increase investment for factories, and to change the investment climate.
He said reforms were brought in the mining sector to encourage private investments, difference between captive and non-captive mines was abolished, mineral index development was started, stamp duty for mining lease was rationalized and commercial production in coal sector was cleared.
“This opened a lot of investment opportunities in the coal and mining sector. Investment is coming, production has increased. When the world was facing a coal shortage and people were writing that the country may plunge into darkness but nothing of that sort happened because we increased coal production in time,” he said.
He highlighted the changes in policies to give boost to the civil aviation sector, setting up of project development cells in every ministry, dynamic ranking system to spur healthy competition among states to attract investments, the schemes which have brought in₹2.25 lakh crore investment in the country.
Modi had the vision that after the pandemic, India will be gifted with a great opportunity. He could visualise an impending global recession and helped stave it off in India. AMIT SHAH, Home minister