‘INDIA IS NOT 70 YEARS OLD BUT THIS JOURNEY IS 70 YEARS LONG’

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Prime Minister’s Address on 70th Independence Day, 15 August 2016

Hoisting the Tri-colour from the ramparts of Red Fort on the occassion of 70th Independence Day, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in his third Independence Day speech said this festival of 70 years of our Independence, is the festival for our resolution to take the nation to new heights with a new resolve and a new fervor and new energy. We are able to breathe in a free air as the result of the sacrifices, renunciation and penance of our millions of great forefathers.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Our land has seen many historical ups and downs and our generations have waged many struggles and observed penance to bequeath great values to the humanity.
• India’s age is not just seventy years. But having won freedom after a period of subjugation; we have made efforts to take the nation forward in this journey of seventy years.
• Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel united the nation. Now, it is the responsibility of all of us to make this nation better. We all have to work ceaselessly for the realization of the dream of ‘One India, great India’. (Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat). We have not attained freedom for free of cost.
• My Countrymen, when I talk about the Good Governance, it does implies bringing in transformation in the life of common man of my country. Good governance means that the government should be sensitive, responsive and dedicated to the common man. Then only good governance gets the emphasis.
• Responsibility and accountability should be at the root of it and it should draw its vital energy from there only for the government to be sensitive.
• We remember the days when there used to be a very long wait to go to any big hospital. People used to come to AIIMS, spend two three days and then only it would be decided what diagnostic tests were to be done. Now we have been able to change this system. Registration is done online and the doctor’s appointment is also given online.
• The government should be accountable. If it be not so then the problems of the common man are kept pending for solutions. How does the change come?
• It is equally important to lay emphasis on the transparency for good governance.
• You know that a global relationship has already started to become a common thing in the society today.
• Good governance is also necessary for Surajya and the steps we have taken towards this good governance are that, as I had said last year from the Red Fort that we would exempt group ‘C’ and group ‘D’ posts from interviews, they might get job on the basis of merit. We have detected almost 9,000 posts for which thousands and lakhs of people need to be recruited.
• Rural roads are a perpetual issue in our country. Each rural citizen craves for pakka roads. Its a huge task. Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ji took this task specifically. Even succeding governments continued this and the work continued. We have made efforts to fast track it. Earlier 70-75 Km of rural roads were completed in a day. Now we have increased that pace up to 100KM a day. This pace will fulfil the aspirations of common man in the days to come.
• Now we are connecting government schemes to Aadhaar Card, focusing on stopping the leakages through direct benefit transfer. Previous government had connected four crore people to government schemes via Aadhaar Card.
• There was a time when gas stove at home was deemed as a standard and as a symbol of social status. During the last 60 years of independence, 14 crore LPG gas connections were given.
• It is a great satisfaction to me that on one side, 14 crore gas connections were given in 60 years, while on the other side, we have given 4 crore gas connections in just 60 weeks. Please compare the two figures – 14 crore in 60 years and 4 crore in 60 weeks. This is the speed, by which a change has become possible in the quality of life of common men.
• We have also started the task of eradicating obsolete laws. The burden of unnecessary laws has been creating hindrance in the functioning of the government, the judiciary and the public. We have identified 1700 such laws, out of which 1175 laws have already been repealed by the Parliament and several other such laws are in the process of repealing.
• When we had launched “Prime Minister Jan-Dhan Yojana”, it was almost an impossible task. There were banks and the governments, nationalisation had already taken place, but the common man of the country was not able to be a part of the mainstream of national economy.
• Brothers and Sisters, we have attained this impossible task through inclusion of 21 crore persons under “Jan-Dhan Yojana”.
• We have already distributed thirteen crore LED bulbs and we have resolved to distribute 77 crores and I would like to appeal to my countrymen to use LED bulbs in their homes and save 200, 300, 500 Rupees in a year and save energy and save our environment. The day we achieve the target of 77 crore bulbs, we would be saving 20 thousand Mega Watt of electricity.
• I have tried to do several things in every range
with the mantra of Total transformation, Transformation with transparency, Reform, Perform and Transform.