Nearly a year and a half after it was unanimously voted to power, many a times Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s action plan has been doubted upon. Most of us average countrymen who did not see many perceptible changes at the ground level have wondered if enough is being done in reality? Well here is some news that could cheer up most of us who are betting on a better tomorrow under Modi Raj?
Agency reports indicate that the Prime Minister is leading the Government from the front in terms of clearing bottlenecks and taking forward key infrastructure projects. Stalled projects worth tens of billions of dollar are seeing the sunlight once again, courtesy Modiji’s personal interest in the entire matter. Once a month, he meets with top state and bureaucratic officials to check on the progress on various projects that haven’t taken off or are getting delayed. Data indicates that this intervention alone has helped revive $60 billion worth national and state level projects.
This initiative has been actively publicised by the Prime Minister’s website as well as the Twitter handle. Named Pragati, this form of pro-active governance and timely implementation has received accolades from even many of Mr Modi’s detractors.
The officials are connected to Mr Modi via video links and normally the meeting is conducted on the fourth Wednesday of every month. Covering most ministries including law, land, finance, environment, energy and transport it looks at key projects that need a push to kick start. Normally the agenda is set the week before and tackles at a dozen stalled projects, governance issues and other public grievances through the course of the meeting.
Though a seemingly effective initiative to cut through redtape and expedite implementation, many of the critics feels that this centralised decision making format might not be a fool-proof solution for a country of India’s stature and size. The number of stalled projects is still considerably high. Government data and agency sources indicate that in the second quarter of this financial year, projects worth 7.6% of India’s GDP, or $152 billion, were stalled. Though it is well below the steep 8.5% that was stalled in the last quarter of 2014, it continues to be very significant.
It needs to be seen if Shri Narendra Modi is able to replicate the Gujarat model successfully onto the national platform.
Leave a reply