With his Government close to completing one-year in office this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi got down to review the progress made by various Ministries during this period. On Saturday, the PM chaired a high-level meeting on infrastructure with the focus on specific sectors like rural, power, coal, renewable energy, petroleum and natural gas.
The PM was given a detailed overview of the plans of various Ministries for completion of pending projects within the current financial year. However, he asked for specific data to be collected and presented on priority areas such as toilets, affordable housing and smart cities. He said that in the urban areas, one of the priorities should be creation of waste to wealth, and efficient systems for waste water disposal and solid waste management in 500 cities.
The PM also reviewed the status of stalled projects in the infrastructure sector and sought to know there completion deadlines. While reviewing rural infrastructure, Modi directed that the highest priority be accorded to the work envisaged under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana.
In the power sector, the PM emphasised on electrification of the unconnected villages at the earliest. A roadmap on this was presented to him. Modi inquired about the progress on renewable energy goals, and directed maximum focus on this area. He said public spaces such as railway stations should be priority areas for adopting energy efficient technologies, and renewable energy.
During the meeting, Modi stressed on the need for Government departments to work towards initialising spending of the budget in a focused manner right from the start of the financial year instead of rushing through the spending during the second half of the year. Union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Nitin Gadkari, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Suresh Prabhu and Ashok Gajapathi Raju were present at the meeting along with senior officers from NITI Aayog, various infrastructure ministries and Prime Minister’s Office.
The Centre had earlier asked all State governments including those ruled by non-BJP parties to highlight and furnish success stories of all Centrally-sponsored flagship programmes undertaken by them in their States. The Centre was particularly interested to know the impact these schemes have made in the rural economy.