New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while batting for reaching the last mile in his address to a Budget webinar, said that along with money, political will is needed for the development. Emphasizing the importance of good governance and constant monitoring for the desired goals, he said: “The more emphasis we put on good governance, the more easily our goal of reaching the last mile will be accomplished.”
Explaining the thinking behind the policy of saturation, the Prime Minister said that the approach of reaching the last mile and saturation policy complement each other. He said as opposed to the earlier scenario when the poor were running after the government for basic facilities, now the government is reaching the doorstep of the poor.
“The day we decide that every basic facility will be provided to every citizen in every area, then we will see what a big change will come in the work culture at the local level. This is the spirit behind the policy of saturation. When our aim is to reach everyone, then there will be no scope for discrimination and corruption. And only then, we will also be able to complete the goal of reaching the last mile,” the Prime Minister added.
The Prime Minister said that this year’s Budget has paid special attention to taking the mantra of reaching the last mile to tribal and rural areas. He said that for this, thousands of crore rupees have been allocated to the Jal Jeevan Mission. He asked the stakeholder to discuss the ways of linking housing with technology for finding ways of making strong but affordable houses, finding easy ways of benefiting from solar power and group housing models acceptable in both urban and rural areas.
Referring to the robust allocations for the staffing of the Eklavya Residential Schools, the Prime Minister asked the gathering to see the feedback from the teachers and students from these schools and how students of these schools can get exposure to the big cities. He asked them to deliberate on the ways of creating more Atal Tinkering Labs in these schools and workshops for aspects related with start-ups.
“We have to rapidly provide facilities to our tribal friends in more than 22 thousand villages in more than 200 districts of the country,” he said. The Aspirational District Program has emerged as a successful model in terms of Reaching the Last Mile, the Prime Minister said.
Taking this approach further, an Aspirational Block programme is now being started in 500 blocks of the country. He reiterated that the target of 2 crore 95 lakh houses under PMAY-Rural will be delivered as promised in the budget. He also underlined 66 per cent hike in Union Budget for PMAY from last year’s Rs4 8,000 crore to Rs 79,000 crore this fiscal. /BI/
