Union minister Anurag Thakur said on Saturday that what Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accomplished in 8 years could not happen in 60 years before him, referring to India’s historic lunar exploration mission Chandrayaan-3 and many central schemes.
He said Modi pulled the country out of the clutches of dynasticism and appeasement, which prevailed for a long time, and put it on the course of development.
“We are the first country in the world to land a spacecraft on the Moon's south pole. It is a glorious moment for us. What could not happen in 60 years has been done in just 8 years by Modiji,” said the minister for information and broadcasting and youth affairs and sports.
Thakur was addressing a function here organised for the release of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas', a book volume based on a collection of select speeches of PM Modi.
“A peep into the country’s history of the last 75 years shows that it was beset with dynasticism and appeasement but prime minister Modi pulled the country out of it and put the nation on the developmental course,” he said.
The minister said 4 crore people have got pucca houses in the country and 12 crore women and families have been provided with toilets. Electricity has reached every village, he said.
Thakur said 80 crore poor people received double ration for two and a half years during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, 12 crore people have been given access to piped water in just three years, he said.
“The work of giving free treatment worth Rs 5 lakh to 60 crore people under Ayushman Bharat Yojana has been done by Modji in the last nine years,” he said.
Referring to UPI (Unified Payments Interface) and apps like BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money), the Union minister said that in the world of digital payments, now 46 per cent of the “maximum transactions” take place in India.
He noted that compared to earlier, over 45 crore bank accounts have been opened, with amounts now efficiently reaching beneficiaries through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system.
Highlighting the pivotal role of youth, Thakur said that the youth of India have now become job givers. “India has more than one lakh startups in comparison to the world,” he said.
The minister said the cheapest data in the world is now available in India. “The nation has made its own 5G technology and is going to come up with 6G technology in future,” he said.
The minister said India has become the fifth largest economy in the world in its 75th year of Amrit Mahotsav.
Lauding the progress made by Madhya Pradesh, Thakur said earlier it was called a ‘bimaru’ (laggard) state, but after the “formation of the (BJP) government”, it has turned into one of the leading and progressive states in the country.
He said, “We have progressed a lot in education in our mother tongue and only in Madhya Pradesh the syllabus for medical studies has been prepared in Hindi.”
-With PTI Input
