Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday urged bank chiefs to make it easier for people to avail loans through a new Jan Samarth portal, a repository of a dozen credit-linked government schemes. He also said it was imperative to focus on making Indian banks and the rupee an integral part of global trade and supply chains.
Mr. Modi was speaking after launching the iconic week celebrations of the Ministries of Finance and Corporate Affairs, which he said had charted a great journey in recent years by “taking the right decisions at the right time”.
The PM also released a special series of ₹1, ₹2, ₹5, ₹10 and ₹20 coins with the logo “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav”, which he said would ‘persistently remind people of the goals of the Amrit Kaal and inspire them to contribute to the country’s development’.
He said people’s participation had increased and the poorest of the poor had been empowered in the past eight years, following several unique steps taken by the government. “We included more than half of the country’s population, which was deprived of the formal system and was excluded from the country’s development, on mission mode. Such a great work of financial inclusion has not happened anywhere in the world in such a short time. And most of all, we got to see a new courage among the people of the country to make their dreams come true,” Mr. Modi said.
“After seven decades of independence, this huge transformation is a reflection of the Centre’s persistent people-centric good governance efforts. There was a time when all policies and decisions were government-centric, and it was the people’s responsibility to reach the government to avail the schemes that were launched,” he noted.
One platform for all
“If a poor student needed financial support, he was compelled to seek help from friends and family first. Whatever government schemes were there had so many processes that a student would feel tired and not bother to go through the long process,” the Prime Minister said, adding the situation was similar for prospective entrepreneurs.
“These difficulties resulted in students and entrepreneurs abandoning their dreams altogether,” the PM said, emphasising that the new portal would make life easier for farmers, students and entrepreneurs who would be able to assess which of the government’s schemes would work best for their needs on a single platform instead of different Ministries’ websites.
As of now, at least 12 schemes that granted beneficiaries credit from banks had been included in the portal, which would also ensure that citizens need not answer the same questions when applying for different government programmes, Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.
“For any reform with a clear goal that is implemented seriously, good results are assured. The primary objective of the reforms undertaken in the last eight years has been to ensure that our youth get complete opportunities to demonstrate their abilities,” the PM said.
“We have shown over the past eight years that If India decides to get together to do something, then it can become a new source of hope for the whole world. Today, the world doesn’t just look at us as a large consumer market, but also as a capable, game changer, creative, innovative ecosystem,” Mr. Modi said, stressing that a large part of the world looked at India for solutions to their problems.
“This has become possible because in the past eight years, we have trusted the capabilities of the ordinary Indian. We have encouraged the people to be intelligent participants in growth,” he said.
