New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing The Economic Times Global Business Summit at Hotel Taj Palace here on Friday, said that India has shown the world what it means to be antifragile. The Prime Minister noted the changes that have taken place since his last appearance at the ET Global Business Summit three years ago. He recalled that it was just three days after the last Summit WHO had declared Covid-19 a pandemic leading to massive rapid changes globally and in India.
The Prime Minister said that the context gave rise to discussion on the concept of ‘anti-fragile,’ that is, a system that is not only resilient in the face of adversity but gets stronger using those adversities. He said that the concept of anti-fragile brought to his mind the collective determination of 140 crore Indians. He said that during these three years of war and natural calamity, India and Indians have demonstrated tremendous determination.
“India has shown the world what it means to be antifragile. Where earlier there used to be the talk of Fragile Five, now India is being identified with antifragile. India has shown the world how to convert calamities into opportunities. Humanity will also be proud of itself after 100 years by studying the capability shown by India during the biggest crisis in 100 years,” the Prime Minister added.
Referring to the theme of this year’s summit ‘Reimagine Business, Reimagine the world’ the Prime Minister explained how re-imagination came into play when the country gave the current government an opportunity to serve in 2014. He recalled the tough times for the country’s reputation due to scams, the poor being deprived due to corruption, the interests of the youth being sacrificed on the altar of the dynasty, and nepotism and policy paralysis delaying projects.
“That’s why we decided to reimagine, re-invent every single element of governance. We re-imagined how the government can improve welfare delivery to empower the poor. We re-imagined how the government can create infrastructure in a more efficient way. We re-imagined what kind of relationship the government should have with the citizens of the country,” the Prime Minister said.
The Prime Minister elaborated on reimagining welfare delivery and talked about the delivery of bank accounts, loans, housing, property rights, toilets, electricity, and clean cooking fuel. “Our focus was to empower the poor to enable them to contribute to the rapid growth of the country with their full potential,” he said.
Giving an example of Direct Benefit Transfer, the Prime Minister remembered former Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi’s remark on leakage that 15 paisa out of one rupee reached the intended beneficiaries. “Our government has so far transferred 28 lakh crore rupees via DBT under different schemes. If Rajiv Gandhi's remark had remained true even today, then 85 percent of it i.e. 24 lakh crore rupees would have been looted. But today it is also reaching the poor,” the Prime Minister said.
The Prime Minister said that even Nehru ji knew that when every Indian will have a toilet facility, it will mean that India has reached a new height of development. He said that 10 crore toilets were constructed after 2014 taking sanitation coverage from below 40 per cent to 100 per cent in rural areas.
Giving examples of aspirational districts the Prime Minister said in 2014 more than 100 districts were very backward. “We re-imagined this concept of backwardness and made these districts aspirational districts,” the Prime Minister said. The Prime Minister gave several examples such as institutional deliveries increasing from 47 per cent to 91 per cent in Aspirational District Fatehpur of UP. The number of fully immunized children in the Aspirational District Barwani of Madhya Pradesh has now increased from 40 per cent to 90 per cent.
In Aspirational District Washim of Maharashtra, in 2015, the success rate of TB treatment has increased from 48 per cent to nearly 90 per cent. Now the number of Gram Panchayats with broadband connectivity has increased from 20 per cent to 80 per cent in the Aspirational District of Yadgir, Karnataka. “There are many such parameters in which the coverage of aspirational districts is getting better than the average of the whole country,” the Prime Minister said. Regarding clean water supply, the Prime Minister said that only three crore tap connections were there in 2014. In the last three and half years have added 8 crore new tap connections.
Similarly, in infrastructure, political ambition was given precedence over the country’s needs and the power of infrastructure was not appreciated. “We stopped the practice of viewing infrastructure in silos and re-imagined infrastructure building as a grand strategy. Today, highways are being built in India at a speed of 38 km per day and more than 5 km of rail lines are being laid every day. Our port capacity is going to reach 3000 MTPA in the coming two years. Compared to 2014, the number of operational airports has doubled from 74 to 147. In these 9 years, about 3.5 lakh kilometres of rural roads and 80 thousand kilometres of national highways have been built. In these 9 years, houses of 3 crore poor have been built.”
The Prime Minister said that metro expertise was there in India since 1984 but till 2014 only half a kilometre of metro lines was laid every month. That has increased to 6-km per month. Today India is at number five in terms of metro route length and soon India will be number 3.
“PM GatiShakti National Master Plan is not only giving speed to the construction of infrastructure but also giving emphasis to area development and people development,” the Prime Minister remarked as he highlighted the 1600 plus data layers of infrastructure mapping available on the GatiShakti platform. He noted that India’s expressways or other infrastructure have also been linked to AI to decide the shortest and most efficient route.
Throwing light on reimagining infrastructure in India’s aviation sector, the Prime Minister informed that earlier, a large chunk of the airspace was restricted for defence which led to aeroplanes taking more time to reach their destination. To find a solution to this problem, the Prime Minister elaborated that the government engaged with the armed forces which resulted in 128 air routes being opened up for civilian aircraft movement today. This led to flight paths becoming shorter thereby saving both time and fuel. He noted that about one lakh tonnes of CO2 emissions have also been reduced with this decision.
The Prime Minister emphasized that India has put forth a new model of development of physical and social infrastructure before the world where India’s digital infrastructure is a combined example of this. Throwing light on the achievements in the last 9 years, the Prime Minister informed that more than 6 lakh kilometres of optical fiber have been laid in the country, the number of mobile manufacturing units has increased manifold and the rate of internet data in the country has reduced 25 times, the cheapest in the world. He noted India’s contribution of 2 per cent of the global mobile data traffic in 2012, compared to 75 per cent contributed by the western market, but in 2022, India had a 21 per cent share of global mobile data traffic while North America and Europe were restricted to only one-fourth share. He further noted that today, 40 per cent of the world’s real-time digital payments take place in India.
Elaborating on the example of tax collections, the Prime Minister highlighted the country's gross tax revenue was approximately Rs 11 lakh crore in 2013-14, but in 2023-24 it is estimated to be more than Rs 33 lakh crore. The Prime Minister credited the reduction in taxes for the increase in gross tax revenue and said, “In nine years, the gross tax revenue has increased by 3 times and this has happened when we have reduced the tax rates.” The Prime Minister noted that taxpayers get motivated when they know that the tax paid is being spent efficiently. “People trust you when you trust them”, the Prime Minister remarked. He also touched upon faceless assessment where efforts are being made to simplify the processes.
Noting that income tax returns were earlier processed in 90 days on average, the Prime Minister informed that the Income Tax Department has processed more than 6.5 crore returns this year where 3 crore returns were processed within 24 hours and the money was refunded within a few days.
The Prime Minister underlined that India's prosperity is the world's prosperity and India’s growth is the world’s growth. He emphasised that the theme of ‘One World, One Family, One Future’ chosen for G-20 contains solutions to many challenges of the world. He said that the world can become better only by taking common resolutions and protecting everyone's interests.
“This decade and the next 25 years make for unprecedented confidence in India. Concluding the address, the Prime Minister said that India’s goals can be achieved faster only with ‘Sabka Prayas’ (everyone’s efforts) and called upon everyone present to get involved in India's development journey as much as possible. “When you associate with India’s growth journey, India gives you guarantee of growth,” he concluded. /BI/
