Big Four game-changing ideas

Storming to power with a decisive mandate in 2014 — an advantage that the earlier NDA Government-led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not have, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a clear road ahead.

Since Modi has no real coalition politics to deal with, it should be easier for him to deliver the much-promised ‘development model’ that catapulted him to power.

After six months in power, there are broadly four ‘Big Ideas’ that are identified with the Modi Government: the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana , the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan , Make in India and Smart Cities.

While these ideas aren’t exactly novel, Modi has succeeded in making them ‘big’ by innovating and turning them into participatory movements, involving the government machinery, corporates, celebrities, non-profit organisations and the people.

While the UPA government also had a ‘financial inclusion’ scheme that focussed on villages, the Jan Dhan Yojana is bigger and different as it aims to reach out to more people by uniform coverage of all households across rural and urban areas.

Under the scheme, Jan Dhan accounts holders will get ₹1 lakh accident insurance cover, a ₹5,000 overdraft after six months of operation, a RuPay debit card and ₹30,000 life cover for unbanked households.

Census 2011 had estimated that out of 24.67 crore households in the country, 14.48 crore had access to banking services.

The Modi Government’s target is to open 10 crore Jan Dhan accounts, which are zero balance, by January 2015. As on December 11, 2014, over 9 crore such accounts had been opened, with over 5 lakh accounts in rural areas and over 3 lakh in urban areas. Over 6 crore of these accounts have zero balance. On October 2, the Prime Minister pledged to deliver a ‘Clean India’: free of open defecation by 2019, the 150{+t}{+h} birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

Wielding the broom himself while announcing the scheme from a Valmiki Housing Colony, the Prime Minister called upon all citizens to fulfil Gandhiji’s vision of a clean India with a ‘bipartisan spirit of patriotism’.

Census 2011 estimates that 59.4 cent households in close to six lakh populated villages do not have toilets and people defecate in the open.

The campaign, a variant of the previous Government’s Nirmal Gram Bharat Abhityan , is wider and has been energised by Modi’s call to focus on building toilets, especially for girls and women, calling upon corporates for funding such projects in mission mode.

The Prime Minister said Indians are bearing a loss of ₹6,500 per capita due to lack of sanitation and other related problems, such as diseases.

According to the Ministries of Urban Development and Rural Development, ₹2 lakh crore will be spent on the Mission over the next five years, with a bigger chunk (estimated ₹1.34 lakh crore) for rural areas and over ₹62,000 crore for urban areas. Over and above this, the States are expected to bear 25 per cent of the cost.

Corporates, too, have been called upon to use their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds for the campaign, which includes eradication of manual scavenging, solid waste management and converting ‘waste into wealth.’

“There has never been a better time to ‘Make in India,’” declared the Prime Minister in September while calling upon foreign companies to invest in manufacturing in sectors such as defence, aviation, automobiles, construction, electronics, food processing, oil and gas, among others. The programme aims to turn India into a major global manufacturing hub, with special focus on tapping the vast potential of the country’s medium-, small- and micro-enterprises.

To create a more conducive investment climate, the government is moving fast to ease ‘doing business’ in India. It has initiated a slew of labour reforms by amending certain Acts to do away with the ‘inspector raj’. Online portals have been launched to simplify procedural bottlenecks for industry in getting regulatory clearances as well as complying with labour laws.

The ‘Make in India’ programme seeks to boost manufacturing, create jobs and a larger market for manufacturers in India and abroad. The government is also focusing on a major drive to skill the country’s large human resource pool to participate in the programme. However, a section of industry, is still awaiting clear policy guidelines for faster land acquisition and environmental clearances for the projects to take-off. Rising real estate prices is another area of concern that needs to be looked at if new projects are to attract foreign investments.

In his Budget speech in July, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley allocated ₹7,060 crore for the government’s ambitious 100 smart cities while the Ministry of Urban Development is working towards finalising the blueprint for the scheme. The concept involves addressing urban challenges by implementing modern infrastructure enabling ‘smart’ solutions and technologies in cities. Technology-based efficient governance, better mobility, solid waste management and energy conservation, among others, are likely to be the parameters for such cities.

Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu has said that much of the investment for this scheme will come from the private sector.

The 100 smart cities tentatively include 35 capitals of States/Union Territories, around 10 cities with population of over 40 lakh, some 25 mid-size towns, and greenfield cities.

Some cities have already been identified and many foreign countries have offered their expertise as well. India has already signed an agreement with Japan where Varanasi, the Prime Minister’s Lok Sabha seat, will be developed into a ‘smart city’ based on Kyoto’s experience. Singapore and Andhra Pradesh have also signed a memorandum of understanding wherein the former would develop a master plan for the new capital city to come up in Guntur-Vijayawada region. Barcelona has agreed to enter into technical collaboration with the Delhi Development Authority and New Delhi Municipal Corporation to develop New Delhi as a smart city. The US has expressed interest in developing Allahabad, Ajmer and Visakhapatnam.

The Centre is looking at the option of privatising the management of basic utilities such as power and sewage treatment in the 100 smart cities.

(Inputs from Shishir Sinha and Navadha Pandey)

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