This year, I have allocated Rs 3,96,000 crore only for infrastructure. Of this, Rs 2,41,000 crore is being spent only on transportation. So rural roads, national highways, railways, ports, airports, power, all these are sectors in which we are heavily investing.
This is what Arun Jaitley said while speaking at the two-day ‘Make in Karnataka’ meet in Bengaluru on Monday.
Jaitley added that for close to three years where the government has been in power, nobody referred to any scandal in this government and all the scandals which come out even today are relating to the previous government.
These are some excerpts of what he said.
I have provided Rs 55,000 crore from the budget to the Railways and the target is for 400 railway stations to be developed by private sector alone. For railway safety, I have created a fund of Rs 1 lakh crore, which is only for track strengthening and institutional strengthening. On rural roads, Rs 27,000 crore is going to be spent, the highest this year and last year. So, this is the extent of expenditure on infrastructure in various ways.
The overall emphasis has been faster decisions, bolder decisions, cleaner economy, freedom from black money, freedom from corruption and a friendly environment for doing business so that the larger returns which come to the economy in terms of taxes can then be spent on the poor of this country.
The ease of doing business, freedom from governmental permissions is a lot of smoothness that we have managed to provide. You have unnecessary red-tapism which has been eliminated. You have discretions which are the source of all corruption which have been eliminated.
Our emphasis areas are absolutely clear. The first right over govt resources must go to the weakest section and the weakest section as far as India is concerned is rural India and agriculture. And therefore, we are sending Rs 1,86,000 crore to rural India for infrastructure projects.
So you have record investment which is put every year under PMGSY (Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojna) rural roads. By 2019, our target is that every village in India must be connected with a road. By 2018, every village in India must be electrified. By 2022, under the Awaas Yojna, we will give Rs one to two crore houses to rural people.
So, we have the maximum amount to be provided for rural employment, the highest ever to be provided by interest subvention to farmers, the highest amount ever for dairy milk production so that these generate additional income for the farmer.
For two years in a row, India has become the fastest growing economy in the world. We opened up the economy and this is one of the most transparent economies now.