The Prime Minister asserted that during his 15-month tenure, the "scale and speed" of reforms has improved significantly and even the global bodies like World Bank and IMF have forecast a high growth for India.
Projecting India as a "heaven" for investors, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said his government is working on deregulation and ensuring 'ease of doing business' as he aims to convert the country's economy from 8 trillion dollars to 20 trillion dollars.
In a Townhall Q&A at the Facebook Headquarters in California along with its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Modi spoke about efforts to revive the faith among foreign investors, saying reforms are taking place speedily and the government had managed to "restore the lost confidence" during the last 15 months as he appeared to take a dig at the previous UPA dispensation. He said his government was laying thrust on three sectors particularly -- agriculture, services and manufacturing -- along with building the physical and digital infrastructure simultaneously.
During the 45-minute session, he also spoke in detail about the benefits of social media, particularly how it has been useful to him to connect with the people within the country and abroad, and how it can help take corrective steps if some government steps go wrong. He became emotional while answering a question from Zuckerberg on his over 90-year-old mother as he highlighted how she had raised him by going through difficulties like washing utensils of others and working as a labourer.
"It is my dream to convert Indian economy into USD 20 trillion from the present USD 8 trillion," Modi said in presence of the audience, which mostly constituted of Indians.
Noting that India is a "heaven" for investors, he said, "I do not believe that there is dearth of money. Countries have money but do not know where to invest. I am giving them the address. Here is the place (India). We are bringing technology, transparency, efficiency, ease and effectiveness in governance," Modi said.
The Prime Minister asserted that during his 15-month tenure, the "scale and speed" of reforms has improved significantly and even the global bodies like World Bank and IMF have forecast a high growth for India. At the same time, he said India is a huge country and it will take time for the changes to become visible, as he answered a question about the slow pace of reforms.
"It is not a scooter whose direction you can see changing easily. A 40-compartment train takes time... India is such a huge country," he said.
While talking about the speed of reforms, Modi appeared to take a dig at the previous governments as he said that nationalisation of banks was undertaken 40 years back but 60 per cent of the population was without a bank account till his dispensation introduced the Jan Dhan scheme last year.
"180 million accounts were opened within 100 days of our government. This is the speed and scale of change," he said.
The nationalisation of banks was undertaken by Indira Gandhi.
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