Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said he was thankful to people for their massive response to the Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra, enrolling new beneficiaries for government schemes, and gave the guarantee that he would do anything needed for their welfare.
Interacting with beneficiaries of different Government schemes, via video conferencing, Modi said the Yatra was not even 50-day old and it had passed through lakhs of villages. This was itself a record. The objective of the Yatra was to reach people who had for some reason remained outside the schemes’ purview, he said.
Modi said 10 years ago, people wanting to register for Government schemes might have got disappointed and given up their efforts, after making rounds of concerned offices. Today, the Yatra vehicles are going round the country, enrolling new beneficiaries, and telling everyone there was no bribery or nepotism involved now.
He said the work was being done with dedication and honesty. “I have reached your village to look for people who are still outside the schemes. As soon they are found, they will be enlisted, this is my guarantee. Those without houses, cooking gas or Ayushman cards, will surely get them,” he said.
The Prime Minister said wherever a Yatra van, popularly called Modi guarantee vehicle, reached, it was meeting people’s expectations and giving new confidence to people. More than four lakh fresh applications have been registered for gas connections under the Ujjwala scheme.
One crore new Ayushman healthcare cards have been issued during the Yatra itself, he said. For the first time, a nationwide health check-up is being done, and 1.25 crore people have been covered already. Seventy lakh tuberculosis tests have been done, and Sickle Cell Disease examination has been done on 15 lakh people.
Along with Ayushman cards, ABHA cards are also being issued. ABHA cards keep medical history of card holders, like medicines used, blood groups or doctors consulted and help in future treatments, Mr Modi said.
The Prime Minister said the schemes put heavy responsibility on gram panchayats and these have to identify needy persons. In the last four years, tap water has reached 11 crore dwellings. After this, the focus should be on the quality of water and Water Samitis should be constituted in villages, he said.
The Prime Minister said the rural economy is being given a push through self-employment opportunities for women. Ten crore women have been enrolled as members of Self Help Groups (SHGs) in the past some years, and they have been given an assistance of Rs 7.50 lakh crore. Two crore SHG woman members are proposed to become Lakhpati Didis under the initiative.
The government has launched a big campaign to promote technology in agriculture and to further empower the women’s SHGs. They will be provided 15,000 drones under the Namo Drone Didi initiative, called by some as Namo Didi. This will increase their income, while helping farmers in their work.
Another campaign has been launched to organise small farmers with one to two acre holdings into farmer producers associations. Till now, benefits of cooperation have been seen in milk and sugarcane sectors. Now it is being expanded to other areas of farming and sectors like fish production also, the Prime Minister said.
The lack of storage facilities often forces farmers to sell their produce hurriedly and they don’t get a fair price, he said. To help these farmers, millions of storages need to be built. The responsibility is being given to farmers’ cooperative institutions like PACS.
Efforts are also being made to strengthen more than two lakh micro industries in the food processing sector. The One District, One Product campaign is well known. It will be used to take at least one famous product from every district to international markets. This can play a huge role in making every district economically self-reliant, the Prime Minister said.