Govt has broken imbalance in development with 'Act East' policy: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said his government has broken the imbalance in development by focusing on the eastern part of India and taken governance to people's doorstep in that region.

Speaking at the Rising India summit organised by News18, he highlighted his government's achievements in health, welfare and power sectors and claimed that there is renewed confidence among citizens in the country's rise globally.

Underlining the government's efforts to improve sanitation, he said that while there were 6.5 crore toilets in 2014, the year his government came to power, there are 13 crore now.

Rural sanitation coverage has gone up from 39 per cent to 78 per cent, Modi said.

Asserting that India's stature in the world had grown under his government, Modi said that the number of heads of state and government visiting India in the last four years had doubled and the country had also become a member of several international groups which it had been aspiring to join such as the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and the Australia Group.

India had put terrorism and black money at the centre of the global debate, he said.

Modi also said that the economy was doing well on macro indicators such as fiscal deficit, inflation and FDI inflow, and global financial institutions had recognised it by raising India's rating.

The GST has established India as one market, enhancing the confidence of the investors, he said.

"If we talk of economy then in the last three to four years, India has given strength to not only its economic growth, but of the entire world," he said.

"We are performing extremely well on all economic indicators as a country. India is now contributing nearly seven times the amount it contributed earlier to the world economy," he said.

Talking about his government's work in the eastern part of India, including the northeast, Modi said hundreds of projects in the region never took off due to indifference of previous dispensations, which had changed under his dispensation.

Underlining his government's thrust on eastern India, he said a gas pipeline between Jagdishpur in Uttar Pradesh and Haldia in West Bengal would feed fertilizer plants in Gorakhpur and Barauni, speeding up development and generating employment.

He said his government was building infrastructure and working on the mantra 'Act East and Act Fast for India's East'.

Under the Udan scheme, 12 new airports were being constructed in eastern India with six of them in the northeast.

The eastern region, which included eastern UP, Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha besides the northeast, had also received priority in setting up of AIIMS and research institutes, he said.

"In the last (few) years, we have broken this imbalance in development," he said, adding that when the northeast goes from "isolation to integration", it will lead to a rising India.

Modi cited the idiom 'Dilli dur ast' (Delhi is far way) to state that people from this region believed this about the central government but he had taken "Delhi to the doorsteps of the eastern India".

He also pointed out that as prime minister, he has visited the northeast 28 or 29 times.

Modi said that if the self-confidence of 125 crore people rises, then even the impossible becomes possible and his dispensation had succeeded in making citizens lead the government rather than the other way round.

India will spend over 1 lakh crore to reform the education sector in the next four years, he said.

Video and graphic presentations were also made at the event to highlight the successes of his government's schemes like Ujjwala, under which free LPG connection is provided to the poor, and other development schemes.

Rising India was not about the economy, GDP and foreign investments, but about the rise of the self-respect of the 125 crore population of the entire nation, Modi said.

"Our government has been able to take big decisions because of the people's support and have been able to implement those decisions," he said.

For India to rise, all the people need to feel equal, Modi said.

He said his government is working on having at least one medical college between three parliamentary constituencies.

PTI