PRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi certainly knows how to walk the talk. Last year, on the 75th anniversary of India’s independence, he had announced from the ramparts of Red Fort that India’s Amrit kaal had begun and that the next 25 years must lead to the country emerging as a stronger and more powerful nation when it celebrates its centenary in 2047.
Right after his speech, each ministry and department of the Government was tasked with consulting all stakeholders and coming up with a growth plan and target for 2047. The exercise that had begun last year is reaching a culmination now.
Recently, in the newly-constructed conference hall of Pragati Maidan in New Delhi, PM Modi and his Council of Ministers and Secretaries took stock of Vision 2047 and reaffirmed their commitment to ensuring that in the next nine months, the Government will go to the people and tell them about the work done in the past nine years. The recent visits of the Prime Minister to the US and Egypt and their successes were also discussed in the meeting.
Having a vision document for the next 25 years is a masterstroke in strategy and administration by PM Modi. It pitches development and growth first. It relegates the uncertainties related with five-yearly election cycles to secondary status and presents the Government as above petty politics. It also conveys a supremely confident stance of PM Modi who is capable of looking into the future and envisioning a ‘new and self-reliant India’.
The clarity of thought and the unambiguity of purpose were clear in his Independence Day speech last year when the PM had made five vows and reminded people of three powers. The first vow is of making India a developed nation by 2047. The second is of discarding slavery in all forms. Third, to be proud of our heritage, fourth, to stay united and the fifth, to be aware of our duties towards the country as “only those who are aware of their duties are capable of taking the country on the path of progress”. That’s why, he said, we have to make ‘Team India’ of 140 crore countrymen so that it proves to be a powerful engine to increase the pace of development in the country.
Among the three powers that the Prime Minister talked about, the biggest is the power of technology. The digital revolution which has taken root in the last few years is turning out to be India’s biggest power as it is able to provide solutions where none existed earlier, such as in healthcare, education, governance, communications and administration.
Digital transactions have reduced black money, direct beneficiary transfers have eliminated corruption, financial services are reaching the poor, tax net is getting wider and Government revenue is increasing by the day. The second power is the will power of India’s people which makes them find innovative solutions to whatever hurdles come their way. The third is the power of democracy which ensures freedom of the kind not available even in the biggest of economies.
With true adherence to these five vows and a just use of these three powers, India will surely be a country of PM Modi’s dreams by 2047.
