In an attempt to blunt the barbs of opposition parties blaming him to be “industrialists friendly” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he is not shy of standing with them, who are the growth engine of the country, because his “intentions are clear”.
“We have just four years of rule in the country but those who ruled for 70 years, had always met the industrialists in close door. You will not find pictures with them because they did not make anything public. We are not those who are shy of standing along with industrialists,” Prime Minister said while addressing on the occasion of the ground breaking ceremony to lay the foundation of 81 industrial projects worth over Rs 60,288 crore on Sunday.
“It is wrong to call Industrialists as ‘lootera’ and ‘chor’, which is an insult to them,” he said.
The Prime Minister said even Gandhi ji was not shy of staying at Birla’s house because his intentions were clean. “From a farmer to labourer and even industrialist all are contributing in India’s growth story and insulting the industrialists would do nothing good. Yes, if they do wrong they will be behind bars or will have to flee from the country,” he said.
The comment of the Prime Minister seems to be a reply against Congress president Rahul Gandhi on his attack on some industrialists calling them `Modi ji ke dost’.
The Prime Minister also referred to former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh, who was sitting along with Bollywood filmmaker Boney Kapoor in the audience saying: “Amar Singh would be knowing all the details how the politicians used the industrialists.”
Modi lauded the UP government for its achievement and said probably the state government does not realise the great work they have done in such a short span of time. ‘Rs 60,000 crore investment in five months’ time is a great figure of investment. It is not a ground breaking ceremony but a record breaking function. The manner in which development works have been carried out in such a short span of time was never seen before in UP,” he said and added as Chief Minister of Gujarat he knew how difficult it was to execute MoUs. The achievement of Yogi Adityanath government is commendable.
PM said that this achievement has raised hopes that UP will soon cross one trillion dollar economy.
He said, there was a time when people used to look at investment in UP as a challenge but today it has turned into an opportunity. “I am happy that UP CM has focused on equal development across the state. It’s not just Noida and Ghaziabad but other parts of Uttar Pradesh have also gained,” he said adding that UP has now turned into a policy driven state and this huge investment is proof of that,” he claimed.
Elaborating on importance of UP PM said nation is becoming a hub of mobile manufacturing for the world.” Uttar Pradesh is leading this manufacturing revolution. More than 50 mobile manufacturing company are working in UP and the largest mobile manufacturing unit in the world has also been established here,” he said.
“These projects will prove to be a big step in giving a new direction to Digital India and Make in India. Be it setting up of fiber or establishment of IT center for internet service in UP, digital infrastructure will give a new direction, new pace to the state,” Modi said.
PM said in past three years, Rs 50,000 crore have been saved in electricity bills of the poor and middle class because of the lED bulbs were used n households under Ujala scheme.” If I had announced a concession of this amount, ‘Wah Wah Modi’ would have been the headlines for a week but no one is saying about the achievement,” he said.
He further said that there is no shortage of coal as the power generation has gone up and by the end of this fiscal every household of the country would get electricity supply.” There was a power deficient of 4.2 per cent in 2014 when we took the reign but now it has come down to just 1 per cent while as per the World Bank report in past four years, India had a jump of 82 points in the power index,” he further claimed.
Several industrialists including Gautam Adani, Kumar Manglam Birla and Subhash Chandra also addressed the gathering.