‘India needs to make policies conducive for international investments’, says PM Modi
‘India needs to make policies conducive for international investments’, says PM Modi at NITI Aayog meet
M.U.H
27/07/2024116
Prime Minister Narendra Modi who chaired the NITI Aayog’s Governing Council meeting in New Delhi on Saturday said that India needs to make its policies “conducive for international investments”.
“This decade is of changes, technological & geo-political, and also of opportunities. India should grab these opportunities and make our policies conducive for international investments. This is the stepping stone for progress to make India a developed nation,” Modi said, as quoted by NITI Aayog in a post on X.
PM Modi led discussions on the approach paper for the vision document for Viksit Bharat @2047, which aims to transform India into a $30 trillion economy by 2047.
The meeting, being held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre, brings together chief ministers, Lieutenant Governors, Union Ministers, and NITI Aayog officials.
Earlier, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed that her microphone was cut off during her speech and walked out of the meeting. An official fact-check issued by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) minutes after Banerjee walked out said the claim was “misleading”.
Banerjee had cited “discrimination” and “inadequate time to speak” and said that her mike was cut off in five minutes while the chief ministers from other states were allowed to speak for much longer.
“This claim is #Misleading. The clock only showed that her speaking time was over. Even the bell was not rung to mark it,” PIB posted on X. “Alphabetically, CM, West Bengal turn would have come after lunch. She was accommodated as the 7th speaker on an official request of the West Bengal government as she had to return early,” the post said.
“I have come out boycotting the meeting. Chandrababu Naidu was given 20 minutes to speak, CMs of Assam, Goa, Chhattisgarh spoke for 10-12 minutes. I was stopped from speaking after just five minutes. This is unfair,” Banerjee had said, while addressing reporters outside the gate of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
“I came alone from the Opposition but they stopped me in 5 minutes… I will not attend any meeting further,” Banerjee said. She also said “no government works like this” and that when a government is in power, it has to take care of everyone.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, who is among several INDIA bloc leaders boycotting the meeting, posted on X on Saturday that the Union budget presented last week in Parliament had a “discriminatory attitude towards Tamil Nadu”.
Bihar CM and NDA partner Nitish Kumar was also not present at the meeting. But he was represented by deputy chief ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha.
The Governing Council of the NITI Aayog convened here on Saturday for its ninth meeting since the inception of the government’s apex think tank, marking the first such gathering following the May General Elections and subsequent reconstitution of the GC, which now includes Union ministers from BJP’s NDA allies as special invitees.
According to a statement issued before the meeting, “The meeting aims to foster participative governance and collaboration between the Centre and state governments, enhancing the quality of life for both rural and urban populations by strengthening the delivery mechanisms of government interventions. The meeting will also see detailed deliberations on the role of states in achieving the goal of Viksit Bharat @2047.”
Moreover, the meeting will build on the recommendations of the 3rd National Conference of Chief Secretaries held in December, 2023, during which five themes were discussed under the overarching theme of ‘Ease of Living’– drinking water, electricity, health, schooling, and land and property.
Several chief ministers from the Opposition INDIA bloc stood away from the meeting. They included Tamil Nadu’s M K Stalin (DMK), Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan (CPI-M), Punjab’s Bhagwant Mann (AAP), and all three Congress CMs – Karnataka’s Siddaramaiah, Himachal Pradesh’s Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, and Telangana’s Revanth Reddy. They cited a “discriminatory Union budget” as one of their reasons for boycotting the meeting.
West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee (TMC) and Jharkhand’s Hemant Soren (JMM) had, however, confirmed their attendance.
The recent expansion of the Governing Council on July 16 increased the number of special invitees from five to eleven, including five ministers from BJP’s allies: H D Kumaraswamy (JD-S), Jitan Ram Manjhi (HAM), Rajiv Ranjan Singh (JD-U), K R Naidu (TDP), and Chirag Paswan (LJP-Ram Vilas).
In October last year, NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam said in a media briefing that apex public policy think tank of the government would put together the vision document on Viksit Bharat @2047 after receiving inputs from 10 sectoral groups of secretaries (SGoS) from various ministries created around themes, including infrastructure, welfare, commerce and industry, technology, and governance in a process that lasted nearly two years.
At the time, NITI Aayog was also helping Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh prepare their vision documents while states such as Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Goa, and Uttarakhand were preparing their documents independently.
When asked about how NITI Aayog plans to align states’ vision documents with the national vision document, Subrahmanyam had said, “That’s one of the questions we’re struggling with. I think NITI will have to do some hand-holding. The good thing is that most of the states are only preparing vision documents for the next five years while we’re doing it for much longer. We will play a role from now on as it’s a serious exercise.”