Team Blitz India
AS the fledgling Opposition alliance flounders further – losses in the Rajya Sabha polls being its latest setback – the Bharatiya Janata Party under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is geared to face the upcoming Big Battle, the General Elections 2024.
Close on the heels of the BJP national executive meeting, in which he set a 370-seat victory target for the party and 400-plus for the NDA, PM Modi launched a slew of projects last week in pursuit of his vision for a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
With a view to ensuring that the Government’s development agenda doesn’t get a halt with the Model Code of Conduct expected to come into play in a few days from now, PM Modi laid the foundations and launched multiple projects across health, space and infra sectors.
Healthcare top priority
Launching five new AIIMS and developmental projects worth over Rs. 48,000 crore at Rajkot in Gujarat, he said providing affordable healthcare to the people is the top priority of his Government. He said his Government is working tirelessly on improving healthcare infrastructure.
During the event, the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone and dedicated to the nation more than 200 healthcare infrastructure projects worth more than Rs 11,500 crore across 23 states and UTs. Next day, he laid the foundation stone and inaugurated and dedicated to the nation around 2,000 railway infrastructure projects worth over Rs. 41,000 crore via video-conferencing.
Calling the programme a symbol of the new work culture of New India, PM Modi said, “Whatever India does today, it does it on an unprecedented speed and scale. We dream big and work tirelessly to realise them.” This resolve, he added, was visible in the ‘Viksit Bharat Viksit Railway’ programme.
Amrit Bharat Station
During the programme, the PM laid the foundation stone for redevelopment of 553 railway stations under the Amrit Bharat Station scheme. These stations will be redeveloped at a cost of over Rs 19,000 crore. During his visit to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram, PM Modi inaugurated three space infrastructure projects worth about Rs 1,800 crore.
These include PSLV Integration Facility at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota; ‘Semi-cryogenics Integrated Engine and stage Test facility’ at ISRO Propulsion Complex and the ‘Trisonic Wind Tunnel’ at VSSC, Thiruvananthapuram.