Ever since it came to power, the Modi Government has used every single opportunity to deliver on the mandate given by the people
Don’t find fault, find a remedy” a quote by Henry Ford best exemplifies the visionary and problem-solving leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who chose to find opportunities in adversities by treading a path that has been rarely travelled.
While the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected India’s GDP growth rate at 7.4 per cent and 7.8 per cent for 2018-19 and 2019-20, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) projected it at 7.3 per cent and 7.6 per cent respectively. Indeed, the strongest endorsement of Modinomics comes from the Centre for Economics and Business Research's World Economic league Table Report of 2018 which states that this year, India, which currently has a GDP of $2.3 trillion, will overtake Britain at $2.65 trillion and France at $2.47 trillion, to become the fifth largest economy in the world in terms of dollar.
Amongst the many firsts that the Narendra Modi-led Government can proudly take credit for, is the fact that today, all of India's 597,464 inhabited villages are electrified. Akodara village in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat is India's first digital village; Mawlynnong in Meghalaya is Asia's most swachh village, thanks to more than seven crore toilets that have been built under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan on a war-footing. Bulumgavan village in the dense forests of Melghat in Maharashtra and leisang in Manipur finally received electricity for the first time in 70 years. Tripura came onto India's broad guage map for the first time in 2016 despite becoming a State in 1972 and, of course, India joined an elite few like Russia, China, Germany and Sweden after Prime Minister Modi launched India's first 12,000 horsepower electric locomotive from Madhepura in Bihar on April 10, built jointly with French giant, Alstom, thereby showcasing the success of Make in India.
What an irony that the Madhepura electric locomotive project, which had been conceived way back in 2007, suffered from policy paralysis and political apathy under the Congress-led UPA till the Modi Government decided to operationalise it. The added success of Make in India is evident from the fact that while there were only two mobile handset manufacturing factories in 2014, today, there are 120 such units with global behemoth Apple Inc using India to assemble its iPhones. Also, for the first time ever, the Bogibeel road-rail bridge, connecting Dibrugarh in Assam with Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh, is not merely a resounding success of Make in India but a fitting case of how the Modi Government's indigenous Make in India is silently but surely strengthening India's defence logistics along the 4,000 km-long India-China border.
Again, Modinomics has straddled effectively to bridge gender divide. This is best exemplified by the fact that gender disparity in terms of access to banking has fallen from 20 per cent to six per cent in 31 crore plus ‘Jan Dhan’ accounts with deposits of more than Rs 80,000 crore that have been opened in the last four years. Be it more than 3.53 crore women who have benefited from the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana or the fact that of more than 11 crore loans have been disbursed under the Mudra Yojana, more than 74 per cent of loans have been availed by women. Besides, there has been a rise in sanitation coverage from 39 per cent in 2013 to 83 per cent in 2018, with more than 300 districts in more than 16 States declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) for the first time ever in 70 years. The Modi dispensation has revolutionalised women, especially those in the rural hinterland, in more ways than one.
The fact that the Modi Government built about 10,000 kms of highways in a single year in 2016-17 at the rate of 28-km per day, is a ‘first' too. The Cabinet approval (October 2017) for building 83,677 km of highways in the next five years at a cost of Rs 6.92 lakh crore is another instance of inclusive development based on Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas, after a stupendous success on the renewable energy front, wherein, India is on track to add 175 GW by 2022. The fact that more than 30 crore lED bulbs have already replaced energy-guzzling items and that we are on track to commission 77 crore lED bulbs in the next two years, which effectively means commercial savings of Rs 40,300 crore including energy savings of 100 billion KWH every year, bodes well for an environment-friendly future.
Again, the Moody's upgraded India's sovereign rating in November 2017 to Baa2 from Baa3 for the first time in 14 years. The fact that India moved up by 42 places in the World Bank's global ease of doing business rankings in the first 3.5 years of Modi's tenure and that India's forex reserves hit a lifetime high of $424.86 billion in early April is also a ringing vindication of the stellar pace of reforms under Prime Minister Modi. Undoubtedly, from a fiscal deficit of 4.5 per cent and a current account deficit of 4.8 per cent in 2012-13 and estimated fiscal deficit of 3.3 per cent in 2018-19 and a current account deficit of just 0.7 per cent in 2016-17, we have come a long way in terms of fiscal rectitude. This is a far cry from 1990-91, when saddled with forex reserves of just $1.2 billion, India had to pledge 67 metric tonne of gold with the IMF to raise a paltry sum of $600 million. Numbers never lie and those who allege that the higher GDP trajectory is primarily because the calculation of GDP methodology has been changed from GDP at Factor cost to GDP at Market prices, should know that globally, GDP is primarily calculated using the market pricing method as it takes into account the impact of both indirect taxes and subsidies. In fact, internationally, countries have gone a step ahead and embraced a ‘rolling base year' methodology which effectively means GDP base year changed every year.
Speaking of subsidies, it is no mean a achievement that the Narendra Modi-led Government has, thanks to the DBT scheme and Aadhaar, saved Rs 83,000 crore, covering 437 schemes by stripping out 3.5 crore fake lPG connections, 2.95 crore fake ration cards, 93 lakh ghost MNREGA accounts and over 13 lakh ghost farmer accounts. Bill Gates endorsing data privacy aspect of Aadhaar only reiterates what Section 32(3) and Section 17 (1)(A) of the Aadhaar Act, 2016, clearly ensures in terms of data privacy.
It is said that the most regressive tax on the poor and the salaried is inflation as it erodes purchasing power. In November 2013, under the Manmohan Singh dispensaton, retail inflation and food inflation stood at 11.2 per cent and 14 per cent. For 2017-2018, average retail inflation stood at a six year low of 3.3 per cent and food inflation hovered between minus 2.1per cent and 1.5 per cent. This clearly showcases how Modinomics has decisively won the war on inflation. Even when fuel prices internationally rose by a good 24 per cent between June-October 2017, the price rise locally was capped at less than six per cent for both petrol and diesel.
Speaking of transforming the lives of rural poor, in 2018-19, 54 lakh homes are at various stages of completion. In 2017-18, around 38.67 lakh houses were built under the affordable housing scheme of the Modi dispensation that aims at providing housing for all by 2022 under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (Gramin) and 32.22 lakh homes built in 2016-17. Contrast this with the number of houses completed under the Indira Awaas Yojana ; only 10.49 lakh homes were built in 2012-13 under the Manmohan Singh Government. However, the game-changing move that has empowered India's farming class like never before is the e-NAM platform, which today hosts 585 large agri mandis, one lakh traders and 60,000 commission agents with more than 9.3 million farmers having sold more than 169 lakh tonne of farm produce worth more than Rs 43000 crore in the last two years. Also, more than 18 lakh hectares that is now under the purview of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana and distribution of more than 10 crore neem coated soil health cards are measures that have truly empowered the farmers.
(The writer is an Economist & Chief Spokesperson for BJP, Mumbai)