Bhubaneswar: Drawing a parallel between former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and the incumbent Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Sunday said financial inclusion is the biggest success of the NDA government at the Centre.
"There are several successes of the Modi government in the last two years. But the financial inclusion is the greatest success. As many as 21.7 bank accounts were opened within five-six months with zero balance. 70 per cent of them have already deposited Rs 37,700 crore in banks," Parrikar told reporters.
He was on Odisha trip to attend BJP's Vikash Ustav on completion of two years of the NDA government in Cuttack. "Like Shastriji, Modiji had appealed to well-to-do families to give up gas subsidy for the sake of the country's poor. The response to the appeal was unprecedented. As many as 1.20 crore people have given up gas subsidy. Many poor families now get benefits from the Ujjwala scheme," Parrikar said.
Stating that Shastri in 1965 had made an appeal to people to fast for one day to overcome the food scarcity problem, Parrikar said, "About five lakh women have been given cooking gas. This apart, the government has been successful in detecting 3.5 crore bogus cards and therefore, saved subsidy."
Quoting former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, the defence minister said only 15% of the benefits were earlier reaching people. Now after direct transfer of cash to beneficiaries, people are getting full advantage, he added.
"This is the success of the NDA government," he said.
Parrikar claimed that the people have availed Rs 63,000 crore under 59 different schemes of the central government. Parrikar also claimed that Modi is the first Prime Minister who has come out to give account of his government to people after completion of two years in office.
He recalled how Indian democracy was "in danger" when the then prime minister Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency in 1975. "The people of India reinstalled democracy in the country by defeating the Congress," he said, adding that those were black days in the history of the country.
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