The Centre has asked all ministries to identify two of their biggest achievements to create a list of key success stories of the Narendra Modi government, which will form the basis of NDA’s communication strategy in the 2019 general elections, government officials said.
The PM had earlier asked ministries to compile a list of promises fulfilled vis-à-vis the targets set in the election manifesto of the BJP in 2014. The list included not just the achievements so far but also the pending projects and the reasons for the delay.
The big jump in domestic mobile manufacturing, increase in the annual construction rate of roads, laying of more than 2.5 lakh kms of optical fibre under Bharat Net, and doubling of track renewal to improve passenger safety by railways are some of the key achievements that have been identified.
The ministry of electronics and IT under Ravi Shankar Prasad has listed the huge increase in domestic mobile manufacturing in the country as a success story along with the growth in the number of the common service centres to almost 3,00,000.
In a recent interview to ET, Prasad, who is also the minister for law and justice, said: “Make in India in electronics is the most important component of the Make in India programme. It has shown results — against two mobile manufacturing companies in 2014 we have 118 now and the number is likely to reach 120.”
He had said the revenue turnover increased from Rs 19,000 crore in 2014 to Rs 90,000 crore, and by this March it may cross Rs 1,20,000 crore. A series of changes in the duty structure has made producing in India cheaper against importing of goods and by 2019-2020. It is expected that 96% of India’s mobile needs will be met by domestic mobile manufacturing.
The ministry of road transport and highways said the annual construction rate has increased to 9,000 km a year in FY18, from around 4,000 km in FY14. It has also identified completion of Eastern Peripheral Expressway around Delhi and phase one of Delhi-Meerut Expressway among key goals achieved. The roads are to be inaugurated by Modi in April this year.
“These are among the top achievements along with the monetisation of roads that has already been started,” an official told ET. “We are reducing our dependence on budgetary grant and raising our own resources through leasing out government-owned highways,” the person said.
The government recently concluded the auction process for leasing out nine national highways in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.
The telecom ministry under the minister of state Manoj Sinha has identified fibre optic network project Bharat Net as its top success story and said work under the project was undertaken on a war footing from July to December 2017. A total of more than 2.5-lakh km of optical fibre cable has been laid since June 2014 when the total fibre laid was only 358 km to complete target within the deadline.
It has also said the overall telecom footprint has been doubled in the country, as number of base stations has gone up from 7.9 lakh in May 2014 to 16.9 lakh in December 2017 and optic fibre cable has doubled from 7 lakh kms to 14 lakh kms. Almost 66% increase in internet users, jump in telecom density from 75% in June 2014 to 94% in September 2017, five times growth in broadband access and the rise in the employment in telecom sector from 2.2 million in 2015 to 4 million in 2017 are the other achievements of the telecom sector, which saw the entry of Reliance Jio in September 2016 leading to drop in prices and a huge increase in usage of both voice and data.
The telecom ministry has also said that the USO (Universal Service Obligation) Fund utilisation has tripled with almost Rs 1 lakh crore of projects on the ground, which is the highest spend in telecom sector in the last three years and there has been a spurt in FDI inflows to $6.1 billion in the first half of FY2017 from $1.3 billion in FY2015.
The ministry of railways, which saw a change in guard with Piyush Goyal taking charge last year, is likely to identify doubling of track renewal to improve passenger safety and a massive jump in construction of foot over bridges (FOBs) among its key achievements. Around 300 new FOBs have been sanctioned in FY18.