Opening the doors of development for farmers and residents of lakhs of residents on Jharkhand and Bihar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday laid the foundation of six water projects worth Rs 3,682 crore at  Chiyanki Air Strip in Palamu. These schemes are spread in Chaibasa, Chatra, Garhwa, Latehar and Palamu. However, it was the North Koyal Reservoir Project popularly known as Mandal Dam in Latehar district that was the most prominent among all the foundation.

Addressing a huge gathering of over 1 lakh people at the event the PM said, “Our Government treats farmers as our food givers (anna data), while there was a Government of ‘those’ people who treated farmers as vote bank. These people have played the game of winning election by cheating the farmers.” Modi said there would be more comfort of life by 2022 as farmers income will double up by then.

The PM then explained this dynamics when he said, “First, people of those Government made farmers debtors. Once the farmers became debtors the people of that Government started making show of waiving their loans. What is this? This is straight cheating of farmers. They ought not have been made a debtor at all.”

“Pehli wali sarkar aur iss sarkar mey antar hai (There is a difference between the previous Government and this Government.) The previous Government ran after name, but we went for work,” Modi added.

The PM lauded the efforts of the MPs of Bihar and Jharkhand and also CMs of the two States for the Mandal Dam when he said, “I know there are States who are quarrelling over river water and cases are in the court but here in this Mandal dam case the MPs of Bihar and Jharkhand the CMs of these two States not only worked together but also pressured me for the dam which is very rare and important”. He thanked Nitish Kumar and Raghubar Das quite profusely.

There were 99 irrigational schemes that were found lying in lurch when his Government came to power.  These were the schemes that were lying a non starter for varied reasons. “Our Government allocated 90,000 crore for their completion. Now, I want to know from the gathering if previous Government had not done a colossal injustice and if you say it is then it is a criminal apathy and negligence for which those of the previous Government should be punished”. The gathering just raised hands in chorus ‘yes’.

The PM then went on to remind people that the previous Government in its five years tenure had built only 25 lakh houses but he in his tenure got ready 1.25 crore houses. “Your ‘Sewak’ has got it done otherwise it would have taken enormous time for them to get a house.”

Modi added, “There was a time when schemes were named after a family. I just discarded it. I asked to give schemes a prefix of PM so that if any other man comes as PM here this scheme will continue to go on. Family name before any scheme practice is now over”.

The PM then compared the Awas Yojna of his Government with that of Gvernment when he said, “The Awas of previous Government was not worth any living either. It was in the grip of middlemen. The beneficiary was harassed. Here under our Government there is transparency in Awas Yojna. Fund goes straight to the account of the beneficiaries.” As a token, PM gave keys to five of the beneficiaries of PM Awas Yojna.

About the middle class, the PM assured there will be less burden of interest on their loans for house making. For a house of 20 lakh on loan there will come a rebate of 6 lakh.

Meanwhile, CM Raghubar Das was too critical of the Congress party as he lambasted Dr Manmohan Singh blaming squarely for the shutdown of work on this dam and then Das opened up his ire against Congress when he said, “The mother and the son are running. Corrupt people are having stomachache. The Congress has just one agenda. It is Modi Hatao. It will not be at all. Modi Government is for the poor, for women and for justice.” 

However, there was the unanimity in appreciating the efforts and labour of the local administration and able monitoring of the preparation right from Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, DGP, secretaries of various departments, ADGs of police and IGs too which saw this programme in this winter all incident free no stampede no commotion no protest no nuisance either.