Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized India's current favourable position during his speech at the ET NOW Global Business Summit 2024, stating, "Yahi Samay Hai, Sahi Samay Hai". He highlighted the government's infrastructure initiatives and the benefits of various schemes like direct benefit transfer and Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan. Modi expressed optimism about India's increasing growth rate and decreasing fiscal deficit, seeing this as a pivotal moment in India's developmental journey.
Image Source: PM Modi
About ET Now Global Business Summit
ET Now Global Business Summit, organized by The Times Group, has been a platform for distinguished personalities worldwide. Previous speakers include Prime Minister Modi, Bill Gates, Brian Chesky, Arianna Huffington, Dara Khosrowshahi, Reed Hastings, Steve Wozniak, Guy Kawasaki, Anshula Kant, Gautam Adani, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Shah Rukh Khan, and Paul Krugman. This summit fosters insights and perspectives to shape the future of business and innovation.
About ET Edge
ET Edge, an initiative of The Times Group, has been India's leading conference and thought leadership company since 2015. It creates specialized conferences and summits to empower various sectors with critical business knowledge. ET Now Global Business Summit is one of its flagship events, aiming to facilitate conversations between visionaries and global leaders for societal and business advancement. Other notable conferences by ET Edge include the Sustainability Development Goals Summit, Supply Chain Summit, CX Summit, and Best Brands series.
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PM Modi Speech
Friends, the theme that the Global Business Summit team has set for the summit this time, I think the theme itself is very important. Disruption, Development and Diversification are very popular words in today's times. And in this discussion of disruption, development and diversification, everyone agrees that this is India's time. And the trust of the entire world in India is continuously increasing. We have just seen a Kumbh Mela of such people in Davos, there the liquid is something else, there is no Ganga water there. Unprecedented enthusiasm towards India has also been seen in Davos. Some said that India is an unprecedented economic success story. What was said in Davos was being said by the world's policymakers. Someone said that India's digital and physical infrastructure is at new heights. A veteran said that now there is no place in the world where India does not have dominance. A senior official even compared India's capabilities to that of a 'raging bull'. Today there is discussion in every development expert group of the world that India has been transformed in 10 years. And now Vineet ji was narrating, many things were mentioned in it. These things show how much the world has faith in India today. There was never before such a positive sentiment in the world regarding India's potential. Hardly anyone in the world has experienced such a positive sentiment regarding India's success. That is why I have said from the Red Fort – this is the time, this is the right time.
Friends,
There comes a time in the development journey of any country when all the circumstances are in its favour. When that country makes itself strong for many centuries to come. I see the same time for India today. And when I talk about a thousand years, I talk very sensibly. It is true that if someone has never heard a thousand words, if he has not heard a thousand days, then a thousand years seem very long to him, but some people can see. This period is truly unprecedented. In a way, the ‘Virtuous Cycle’ has started. This is the time when our growth rate is continuously increasing and our fiscal deficit is decreasing. This is the time when our exports are increasing and the current account deficit is decreasing. This is the time when our Productive Investment is at a record high and inflation is under control. This is the time when both opportunities and income are increasing and poverty is decreasing. This is the time when both Consumption and Corporate Profitability are increasing and there has been a record reduction in bank NPAs. This is the time when both production and productivity are increasing. And...this is the time when our critics are at an all-time low.
Image Source: PM Modi
Friends,
This time our interim budget has also received a lot of praise from experts and our friends in the media. Many analysts have also praised it and said that this is not a populist budget and this is also a reason for praise. I thank him for this review. But I would like to add a few more things to his assessment… draw attention to some basic points. If you discuss our budget or overall policy-making, you will see some first principles in it. And those first principles are – stability, consistency, and continuity, this budget is also an extension of that.
Friends,
When someone has to be tested, he can be tested only in times of difficulty or challenge. The Corona pandemic and the entire period that followed became a big test for governments all over the world. No one had any idea how to deal with this dual challenge of health and economy. During this period, India had the most… Remember that day, I used to continuously come on TV and communicate with the country? And in that hour of crisis, he stood in front of the countrymen with a raised chest every moment. And at that time in the early days, I had said and I gave priority to saving lives. And we said, if there is life then there is world. You may remember. We put all our energy into gathering life-saving resources and making people aware. The government made rations free for the poor. We focused on the Made in India vaccine. We also ensured that this vaccine reached every Indian quickly. As soon as this campaign gained momentum…we said Jaan bhi hai, Jahaan bhi hai.
We addressed both health and livelihood demands. The government sent money directly into the bank accounts of women... We provided financial assistance to street vendors and small industrialists, we took all measures to ensure that there were no problems in farming. We resolved to convert disaster into opportunity. My friends from the media world, you can take out the newspapers of that time and see... At that time, the opinion of big experts was to print money, and print notes, so that demand would increase and help big business. I can understand that the people of Industrial House put rubab on me, they will do so even today. But all the Nobel Prize winners also used to tell me the same thing, this is what was going on. Many governments of the world have also adopted this path. But this step may not have resulted in anything else, but we were able to run the country's economy as per our wish and the condition of those people was such that even today they are not able to control inflation. The path he chose has side effects even today. There were many attempts to put pressure on us too. The simple path in front of us was that whatever the world is saying, whatever the world is doing, let's just get carried away by it. But we knew the ground realities…we understood…we made some decisions based on our experience. And the result that came out of it is being appreciated even today by the world. The world is praising him. Our policies which were being questioned were proved to be our policies. And that is why India's economy is in such a strong position today.
Image Source: PM Modi
Friends,
We are a welfare state. Our priority is to make the life of the common man in the country easier and improve his quality of life. Naturally, we made new schemes, but we also ensured that the benefits of this scheme should reach every eligible beneficiary.
We invested not only in the present but also in the future of the country. If you pay attention, you will see four major factors in each of our budgets. First- Record Productive Expenditure in the form of Capital Expenditure, Second- Unprecedented Investment on Welfare Schemes, Third- Control on Wasteful Expenditure and Fourth- Financial Discipline. You must have seen that we balanced these four subjects equally and achieved the set targets in all four subjects. Today some people ask us how we did this work. I can answer this in many ways. And one of the important methods has been the mantra of money saved is money earned. For example, we saved the country a lot of money by completing projects quickly and finishing them on time. Completing projects in a time-bound manner has become the identity of our government. Let me give an example. The Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor was launched in 2008. If the earlier government had acted quickly, its cost would have been Rs 16,500 crore. But it was completed last year, by which time its cost had increased to more than Rs 50 thousand crores. Similarly, you also know the Bogibeel Bridge of Assam. It was started in the year 1998 and it was to be completed with an expenditure of Rs 1100 crore. You will be surprised to know what happened there after some time we came and increased the speed a bit. The case has been going on since 1998. We completed it in 2018. Still, the matter which was worth 1100 crores has reached 5 thousand crores. I can count you so many such projects. Whose money was the money that was being wasted earlier? That money was not coming from the pocket of any leader, it was the country's money, it was the country's taxpayers' money, it was your people's money. We respected the Taxpayers' Money, we put in all our efforts to complete the projects on time. You see, how fast the construction of the new Parliament building took place. Be it the Path of Duty... Be it the Atal Bridge of Mumbai... the country has seen the pace of their construction. That is why today the country says - the foundation stone of the scheme is laid by Modi, it is also inaugurated by Modi.
Image Source: PM Modi
Friends,
Our government has also saved the country's money by bringing transparency into the system and using technology. You can imagine... since the time of the Congress government, in the papers... you will be surprised to hear that 10 crore names appearing in the papers, were fake beneficiaries... such as beneficiaries who were not born. happened. There were 10 crore such widows who never had a daughter. We removed 10 crore such fake names from the papers. We started Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme. We stopped the leakage of money. A Prime Minister had said that when 1 rupee comes out, it reaches 15 paise. We did direct transfers, 1 rupee goes out, 100 paise reaches, not even 99. The result of a Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme is that about Rs 3 lakh crore of the country has been saved from going into the wrong hands. Our government started a portal, GeM, to bring transparency in the things that the government has to purchase, GeM… through it, we have not only saved time, but the quality has improved. Many people have become suppliers. And in that the government has saved about Rs 65 thousand crores, saving Rs 65 thousand crores… We also did diversification of oil procurement and because of that Rs 25 thousand crores have been saved. You are also getting its benefits, day to day. In the last year, we have saved Rs 24 thousand crores just by blending ethanol in petrol. And not only this, the cleanliness campaign which some people make fun of... the Prime Minister of this country keeps talking about cleanliness. I have earned Rs 1100 crore by selling the junk that came out of the cleaning work we got done in government buildings under the cleanliness campaign.
Image Source: PM Modi
And friends,
We also made our schemes in such a way that the citizens of the country save money. Today, because of the Jal Jeevan Mission, it has become possible for the poor to get pure drinking water. Because of this, their expenses on illness have been reduced. Ayushman Bharat has saved the country's poor by spending Rs 1 lakh crore and has provided treatment to them. 80% discount at PM Jan Aushadhi Kendras and in our country discount is a strength, no matter how good the store is, how good the goods are, if the shop next door says 10% discount, all the women will go there. With an 80 per cent discount, we provide medicines to the middle class and poor families of the country. 30 thousand crore rupees are saved in Jan Aushadhi Center and those who have purchased medicines from there.
Friends,
I am accountable not only to the present generation but also to many future generations. I don't want to just go about my daily life. I want you to leave after securing the future of the coming generations.
Friends,
I stay far away from the politics of emptying the treasury and getting four more votes. And so we have given top priority to financial management in policies, in decisions. I will give you a small example. You know the approach of some parties regarding electricity. That approach is going to lead the country's power system towards destruction. My method is different from theirs. You know that our government has brought a rooftop solar scheme for one crore houses. With this scheme, people will be able to reduce their electricity bill to zero by generating electricity and will also earn money by selling more electricity. We started the Ujala scheme which provides cheap LED bulbs… In our previous government, LED bulbs were available for Rs 400. When we came here, the situation became better and we started getting it for Rs 40-50 and the quality was the same, and the company was the same. Due to LED, people have saved around Rs 20 thousand crore in electricity bills.
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Friends,
All of you here… a large number of seasoned journalists are also sitting here… you know… slogans of eradicating poverty have been raised day and night since seven decades ago. Poverty did not go away amid these slogans, but the governments of that time created an industry giving suggestions to remove poverty. He earned money from that. We had set out to provide consultancy services. People in this industry used to tell new formulas to remove poverty every time and became millionaires themselves, but the country could not reduce poverty. For years, the formula to remove poverty continued to be debated while sitting in AC rooms... with wine and cheese and the poor remained poor. But after 2014, when that poor's son became the Prime Minister, this industry running in the name of poverty came to a standstill. I have come here from poverty so I know how to fight poverty. Our government launched a campaign to fight poverty. When work was started in every direction, the result was that in the last 10 years, 25 crore people came out of poverty. This shows that the policies of our government are right, and the direction of our government is right. By moving forward in this direction, we will reduce the poverty of the country and make our country developed.
Friends,
Our governance model is moving forward on two streams simultaneously. On one hand, we are addressing the challenges of the 20th century, which we have inherited. And on the other hand, we are busy fulfilling the aspirations of the 21st century. We did not consider any task small. On the other hand, we faced bigger challenges and achieved bigger goals. If our government has built 11 crore toilets, then it has also created new possibilities in the space sector. If our government has given 4 crore houses to the poor, then it has also built more than 10 thousand Atal Tinkering Labs. If our government has built more than 300 medical colleges, then the work on freight corridors and defence corridors is also going on at a very fast pace. Our government has run Vande Bharat trains and has also run about 10 thousand electric buses in many cities of the country including Delhi. Our government has connected crores of Indians with banking and has also built a bridge of facilities through Digital India and Fintech.
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Friends,
Currently, all the thinkers of the country and the world and dignitaries from the industry are sitting in this hall. How do you set targets for your organization, what is the definition of success for you? Many people will say that we set our target from where we were last year, that earlier we were at 10, now we will go to 12, 13, 15. If there is a growth of 5-10 percent then it is considered good. I would say this is the “Curse of Incremental Thinking”. This doesn't seem right because you are limiting yourself. Because you are not moving forward at your own pace by trusting yourself. I remember, when I came into government, our bureaucracy was also stuck in this thinking. I decided that I would get the bureaucracy out of this thinking only then the country be able to get out of that thinking. I decided to work at a much larger scale and a greater speed than the previous governments. And today the world is seeing its results. There are many sectors in which more work has been done in the last 10 years than has been done in the last 70 years or 7 decades. That is, you compare 7 decades and 1 decade… Till 2014, about 20 thousand kilometres of railway lines were electrified in 7 decades, 20 thousand kilometres in 7 decades. We have electrified more than 40 thousand kilometres of railway lines in the 10 years of our government. Now tell me is there any competition? I am not talking about May. Till 2014, in 7 decades, about 18 thousand kilometers of National Highways with 4 lanes or more were built, 18 thousand. We have built about 30 thousand kilometres of such highways in the 10 years of our government. 18 thousand kilometres in 70 years... 30 thousand kilometres in 10 years... If I had worked with incremental thinking, where would I have reached, brother?
Friends,
Till 2014, less than 250 kilometres of metro rail network was built in India in 7 decades. In the last 10 years, we have built more than 650 kilometres of new metro rail network. In 7 decades till 2014, 3.5 crore families in India had tap water connections, 3.5 crore… In 2019, we started the Jal Jeevan Mission. In the last 5 years alone, we have provided tap water to more than 10 crore homes in rural areas.
Image Source: Prokerala
Friends,
The policies followed by the country in the 10 years before 2014 were taking the country on the path of poverty. In this regard, in this session of Parliament, we have also presented a White Paper regarding the economic situation of India. Today its discussion is also going on and today when there is such a big audience, I also tell what is on my mind. This White Paper which I have brought today, I could have brought in 2014. If I had wanted to pursue political interests, I would have presented those figures to the country 10 years ago. But when the things came to my notice in 2014, I was shocked. The economy was in a very serious condition in every way. There was already great disappointment among investors around the world regarding scams and policy paralysis. If I had opened those things at that time, even the slightest new wrong signal would have gone, then perhaps the confidence of the country would have been broken, and people would have believed that they were drowned and could not be saved now. For example, if a patient comes to know that he has this serious disease, then the Aadhaar ends there and the country would be in the same condition. It suited me politically, bringing all those things out. Politics tells me to do that but national interest does not allow me to do that and hence I left the path of politics and chose the path of national policy. And in the last 10 years when all the conditions have become stronger. We have become strong enough to withstand any attack, so I felt that I should tell the truth to the country. And that is why I have presented the White Paper in Parliament yesterday. If you look at it, you will know where we were and how many bad situations we have come through to reach here today.
Image Source: Prokerala
Friends,
Today you are seeing new heights of India's progress. Our government has done many things. And now I was seeing that our Vineet ji was saying again and again that the third economy of the world, the third economy. And no one has any doubt. I was watching Vineet Ji speak very politely, very soft-spoken. But still, you all believe that yes man! We will reach number three, why? I was sitting next to him. And I guarantee you, in our third term the country will reach number 3 in the world in economy. And friends, you should also be prepared, I do not hide anything. I also give everyone a chance to prepare. But why do people think that he is a politician, so they keep speaking. But now that you have had my experience, I don't speak like that. And so let me tell you, in the third term… even bigger decisions are going to be taken. I have been preparing new schemes for the last one and a half years to remove poverty from India and to give a new impetus to India's development. And how will I work in different directions, where will I take it? I am making its complete road map. And I have taken suggestions from more than 15 lakh people, in different ways. With more than 15 lakh people, I have been working on it. I am telling you for the first time that I have never given any press notes. The work is going on and it will take its final form in the coming 20-30 days. New India will now work at such super speed...and this is Modi's guarantee. I hope that there will be positive discussions at this summit. Many good suggestions will emerge, which will be useful for us in the road map that is being prepared. Once again, I wish you all the best for this event.
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