Prime Minister Narendra Modi After independence, the country on Monday blamed the previous Congress governments for giving step-motherly treatment to the villages and breaking their trust. Addressing a public program in Rewa on the occasion of National Panchayati Raj Day, Modi targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party. The (BJP) led government has changed the situation and given huge grants to the panchayats.
Modi said, “The party which ruled for the longest time after independence broke the trust of the villages… gave them step-motherly treatment.”
“People, schools, roads, electricity, storage facilities, economy of villages…all these were kept at the bottom of the government’s priorities during Congress rule,” he said after virtually inaugurating several development projects.
“Previous governments avoided spending money on villages because villages in themselves were not vote banks. That’s why they were ignored,” he said.
“Many political parties were running their ‘shops’ by dividing the people of the village. BJP has ended this injustice done to the villages and opened our coffers for their development.
He also took a veiled dig at MP Congress chief Kamal Nath while speaking about the lack of development in Chhindwara, saying the fault lies with the thinking of some political parties.
Nath was the Lok Sabha MP from Chhindwara for a major part since 1980, while his son won the seat in the 2019 general elections, which also ensured that the BJP did not have a clean sweep of 29 seats in the state.
“The ruling parties broke the trust of the rural poor after independence by ignoring the basic needs of these areas,” Modi said.
Extending his best wishes on National Panchayati Raj Day, the Prime Minister said that more than 30 lakh panchayat representatives from across the country have been virtually associated with the program organized in Rewa.
“It is definitely a very powerful picture of India’s democracy,” he said.
Modi said that in the 10 years before 2014, around 6,000 panchayat buildings were constructed with the help of the then central governments.
“But, our government has got more than 30,000 new panchayat buildings constructed within eight years,” Modi said.
Since 2014, the country has taken up the cause of empowerment of its panchayats and the results are visible today. The PM said that now the panchayats of India are emerging as the lifeline of the development of villages.
The PM said that the post-independence governments abolished the Panchayati Raj system in the country.
He said that the system which existed hundreds of thousands of years ago, the same Panchayati Raj system was not trusted after independence.
Referring to the digital development of rural areas in the current government, Modi said that in this era of digital revolution, panchayats are also being made smart.
He said that the e-GramSwaraj-GeM (Government e-Marketplace) integrated portal has been launched on Monday and it would make the process of procurement done through panchayats simple and transparent.
“There is a lot of confusion in our minds regarding the property papers of the houses in the villages. Because of this there were many disputes and possibilities of illegal possession. Now, all these things are changing with ‘PM Swamitva Yojana’.”
Modi asserted that the scheme is changing the landscape of property rights in villages and reducing disputes and litigation, while using drones to ensure that people get property documents without discrimination have been
The work of ‘property cards’ in 75,000 villages of the country has been completed, the PM said and praised the MP government for the efforts made in this direction.
The PM said, when the villages of the country are run by banks, then people in rural areas are being helped from farming to business.
“We have opened bank accounts of more than 40 crore people in villages by running Jan Dhan Yojana. We have increased the reach of banks to villages through India Post Payments Bank.
He said that the previous governments had connected optical fiber (system) to less than 70 gram panchayats.
“It is our government which has taken optical fiber to more than two lakh panchayats in the country,” he said.
For a developed India, every panchayat, every institution, every public representative and every citizen of the country will have to be united. PM Modi said that this is possible only when basic facilities reach 100 percent of the beneficiaries expeditiously without any discrimination.
He said that it is necessary to develop the economic system of the villages of India and there is also a need to strengthen the Panchayat system to make the country developed.
He said, with this thinking, our government is continuously working to strengthen the panchayat system of the country.
The PM said that more than four lakh families performed ‘griha pravesh’ for pucca houses built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and congratulated the beneficiaries.
The PM said that his radio broadcast ‘Mann Ki Baat’ is set to complete its 100th edition due to public support.
Modi said he too is eagerly waiting for the 100th episode (on April 30) and urged people to join him on the occasion.
Madhya Pradesh Governor Mangubhai Patel, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister Giriraj Singh were present on the occasion.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)