Rewa (Madhya Pradesh) [India], April 24 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party government ended "injustice" done to the villages by the previous administrations which "ignored and avoided spending money in the rural areas".
The Prime Minister said that the political parties in the past indulged in "dividing the people of the village".
Addressing the Panchayati Raj Diwas celebrations in Madhya Pradesh's Rewa, PM Modi said, "Earlier governments used to avoid spending money for the village... so they were ignored. Many political parties were running their shops by dividing the people of the village. BJP has also ended this injustice being done to the villages. Our government has opened the coffers for the development of villages."
The Prime Minsiter said that the governments after independence destroyed the Panchayati Raj System of India.
"The system which existed hundreds of years, thousands of years ago, the same Panchayati Raj system was not trusted after independence. I always think, those people of Chhindwara whom you trusted for so long, why were they never serious about your development?.... The party that run the govt the most after independence broke the trust of those villages..."," he said.
Reflecting on the years before 2014, PM Modi said that only 6,000 panchayat buildings were built, while during the BJP rule in these eight years, more than 30,000 new panchayat buildings were constructed.
"In the 10 years before 2014, around 6,000 panchayat buildings were built with the help of the central government. Only about 6,000 panchayat houses were built in the whole country. Within 8 years, our government has got more than 30,000 new panchayat buildings have been constructed," he said.
Lauding the work done by the BJP, the Prime Minister said that more than 2 lakh panchayats of the country have been connected to optical fibre.
"The previous government had connected optical fibre to less than 70-gram panchayats. It is our government, which has taken optical fibre to more than 2 lakh panchayats in the country," he said.
He said that the panchayats of India are emerging as the lifeblood of the development of villages.
"Since 2014, the country has taken up the cause of empowerment of its panchayats and the results are visible today. After 2014, the budget allocated for panchayats, which was earlier less than Rs 70,000 crores, has been increased to Rs 2 lakh crores. Today, panchayats of India are emerging as the lifeblood of the development of villages," PM Modi said.
"Our government is constantly working to strengthen the Panchayati Raj system in the country. Whichever schemes the government has made to make life easier for rural India, our panchayats are realizing them on the ground with full dedication," he added.
The Prime Minister said that every panchayat, institution, representative, and citizen of the country will have to unite for a developed India.
"This is possible only when the basic facilities reach 100 per cent beneficiaries expeditiously, without any discrimination. We opened bank accounts of more than 40 crore people of the village by running the Jan Dhan Yojana. We increased the reach of banks to villages through India Post Payments Bank," he added.
Launching the e-Gram Swaraj-GeM Integrated Portal, he said that in this era of a digital revolution, now panchayats are also being made smart.
"The e-Gram Swaraj-GeM Integrated Portal has been launched today. This will make the process of procurement done through Panchayats simple and transparent," he added.
PM Modi inaugurated and lay the foundation stone of various railway projects worth around Rs 2300 crore. The projects include 100 per cent rail electrification in Madhya Pradesh, along with various doubling, gauge conversion and electrification projects.
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