Yojana: The Story of New India II
Investor-friendly India
- In order to make India as a global manufacturing hub, the Government has launched the 'Make in India' campaign and it aims at reaping the economic spin-offs thereon in terms of better infrastructure, better employment opportunities and leveraging on India's massive demographic dividend.
- The net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows have hit an all-time high in early 2017 of the order of $3.35 bn and have more than financed the current account deficit.
- Foreign investment has increased by nearly 46 per cent since the launch of Make In India.
Yojana: The Story of New India I
- The passage of the historic GST legislation is set to simplify the tax regime, create a nationwide market for goods and services and broaden the tax base giving a fillip to economic growth.
- Government revenues are set to raise logistics, inventory costs, tax evasion will fall and manufactured goods would be cheaper.
- After passing the GST bill, the dream of ‘one nation, one tax’ is now a reality for the country.
- Manufacturing will get more competitive as GST addresses cascading of tax, inter-state tax, high logistics costs and fragmented market.
- There will be increased protection from imports as GST provides for appropriate countervailing duty.
Digital India
- To realise the dream of a more efficient economy, the Digital India Campaign was launched to step up digital infrastructure and promote digital literacy.
- Digitisation bringing on e-governance ensures efficiency and transparency while saving a lot of time on procedural matters.
- While Digital India initiative is in its early stages mushrooming this scheme across multilingual platforms and improved internet connectivity in rural areas can help scale up this initiative.
- For the realisation of the importance of adequate infrastructure, the government is committed to establishing Bharat broadband, connecting 2.5 lakh panchayats to the Internet.
- As on January 29, 2017, Optical Fibre Cable has been laid to 76,089 gram panchayats with a total length of 1, 72,257 kilometres while many as 16,355 gram panchayats have been provided with broadband connectivity.
Economic Issue: Significant Achievements of NITI Aayog I
Clean India
- One initiative which is synonymous with the government is the
which can be hailed as a transformational move that sets the lofty goal of achieving an open defecation free India by 2019.
- The infrastructure in terms of the number of toilets constructed has been augmented manifold under this scheme.
- The government has also plan to address behavioural change by shackling age-old cultural, social and religious norms that prevent people from using toilets.
- More than 4 crore toilets have been constructed so far since the inception of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and 573 cities, 1, 88,008 villages and 130 districts have been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF).
Skill India
- On the skill development front, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) is the flagship scheme of the government launched with the objective of enabling a large number of Indian youth to take up industry-relevant skill training.
- The PMKVY will help Indian youth in securing a better livelihood with job security.
- With the slogan of "Kaushal Bharat, Kushal Bharat", a total of 19.85 lakh youth have been trained and 2.49 lakh placed in FY 16, while 8479 training centres have been opened in 596 districts.
The Hindu Editorial Crux: India and Turkey Relations
Transparent India
- In order make India more transparent, the present Government has followed the maxim of ‘Minimum government, Maximum governance’ which can be witnessed in the changed work ethics of the government.
- The current leadership has a professional work style and has ‘corporatized’ the governance by invigorating a new work culture in the government.
- The Government conducts routine review meetings comprising of ministers and top bureaucrats, and periodic interactions with officials all across the country via video conferences forms the new hallmark.
- The biggest achievement of the government has been to curb widespread corruption in the system and eliminate delays and administrative bottlenecks as seen in decisions such as coal block allocations. This is the story of a Transparent India.
Economic Issue: Significant Achievements of NITI Aayog II
Conclusion
The Government’s initiatives to make India as a ‘New India’ are quite commendable. Earlier, most of the welfare schemes and programmes were lack in vision and unable reach the targeted beneficiary. But, in the last few years, the Government has succeeded to maintain accountability on their part and most of the initiatives have been made more transparent reaching the ultimate beneficiary. The initiatives like Digital India, Inclusive India and the assisting flagship schemes likes PMJDY, PAHAL, DBT etc. have proved the will of the Government devoted towards the benefit of the citizen as a whole.