Prime Minister Narendra Modi distributed about 51,000 appointment letters to newly inducted recruits under the Rozgar Mela programme via video conferencing on Thursday.
The recruits, selected from across the country, will be joining the government in various Ministries and Departments, including, among others, the Ministry of Home Affairs; Ministry of Defence; Ministry of Health and Family Welfare; Ministry of Labour and Employment; Department of Revenue; Department of Higher Education; Department of School Education and Literacy; and Department of Financial Services.
Mr. Modi claimed that the principles of equality had been neglected after Independence, when a major section of society had been deprived of resources and basic amenities for years, and it was only after 2014, when the present government had come to power, that the mantra of “priority to the deprived” was adopted, and a new path forged. “Government reached the doorsteps of those who had never received any benefits,” Mr. Modi said.
He added that even though the bureaucracy, the people and the files remained the same, prioritising the development of the poor and the middle class brought about a holistic change in the working mechanism and style of the entire system. He claimed that more than 13 crore people had risen out of poverty in the last five years, according to a recent study.
Speaking of the advent of “mission mode” in the completion of projects, the Prime Minister said “incomplete projects are a great injustice to the honest taxpayers of the country. In recent years, the Central Government has reviewed projects worth lakhs of crores of rupees and got them completed rapidly,” leading to new avenues of employment.
He gave examples of delayed projects which had seen the light of day in recent times, including the Bidar-Kalburgi railway line project, which was started 22-23 years ago and was completed in three years; the Pakyong airport in Sikkim, which was conceived in 2008 but stayed only on paper till 2014, and after 2014, it was completed by 2018; the Paradip refinery, which was under discussion for 20-22 years without any significant progress, had been completed recently.
Speaking about the real estate sector, Mr. Modi pointed out that it had been heading towards a decline for builders as well as the middle class but the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) had established transparency and boosted investment. “Today, more than one lakh real estate projects in the country are registered under RERA,” Mr. Modi said, nothing that stalled projects brought employment opportunities to a standstill. He said that the country’s growing real estate sector was today creating a large number of employment opportunities.
