As part of the celebrations to mark three years of the Narendra Modi government, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in consultation with the Cabinet Secretariat is preparing to extol Modi the innovator and showcase the delivery of his promise of providing good governance.
A BJP team, led by party vice-president and Rajya Sabha member Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and with inputs from senior bureaucrats, is putting together the several innovative steps taken to improve governance during the three years of Modi government.
The compilation, which aims to list at least 25 innovations of the Modi government, is likely to be criticised for including some of the programmes and schemes that were the brainchild of the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government but were improved upon by the Modi government, for example the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) or Aadhaar.
However, Sahasrabuddhe and his team are primed to respond to such criticism. The team points out that the PM himself has acknowledged in Parliament that some of the schemes were indeed initiated during the UPA years. “The point isn’t who launched a particular scheme or programme, but who made it more productive, result oriented and capable of achieving its objectives,” Sahasrabuddhe says.
For each innovation included in the list, the compilation will have a details on how it came about, the value additions during the years of the Modi government and its impact. The book might also give a snapshot of some of the innovative measures taken by the Gujarat government during the 13-years of Modi as the chief minister of that state. Some of the initiatives that the Centre is now implementing were first undertaken in Gujarat, like soil health cards for farmers.
Some of the initiatives likely to be listed are - use of social media to improve the journey experience of railway passengers, International Day of Yoga to promote practice of yoga and holding of Pragati meetings, which has been successful in monitoring, reviewing and fast tracking Central and state government projects that have been stuck.
But the focus of the compilation would be consistent with Modi government’s garib kalyan, or welfare of the poor agenda. Schemes that have benefitted large number of people would be highlighted. For example, the efforts to make MNREGA more efficient and to integrate it with irrigation schemes, digging of ponds and dug wells to increase the water table, or even preparing vermi-compost pits. The mobile monitoring system is said to have been effective in checking leakages and the crucial difference between how the scheme was implemented during the UPA years and now.
The compilation will point out how the Modi government built on the UPA’s efforts at financial inclusion of the poor by ensuring that 99% of households now have bank accounts, or the use of Aadhaar to eliminate fakes that has resulted in a saving of Rs 50,000 crore for the government.
Then there are the more obvious new initiatives – the advancing of the calendar for budget presentation, doing away with the practice of a separate railway budget and replacing the Planning Commission with the NITI Aayog, which has also done away with the practice of plan and non-plan expenditure.
Expanding the ambit of crop insurance scheme and effectively implementing neem coated urea to check pilferage would be cited as some other examples of Modi government’s good governance.