New Delhi, May 27 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday spoke about the extensive use of technology in giving new direction and pace to governance and also took dig at past Congress regimes for ‘allowing’ middlemen to gobble up public welfare funds.
PM Modi, in an exclusive interaction with IANS at his official residence, said: “Our government has transferred about Rs 38 lakh crore directly into accounts of beneficiaries via Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), so far.”
“If we talk about times of Rajiv Gandhi government (when out of Rs 1, only 15 paise reached the intended beneficiaries), about Rs 25-30 lakh crore could have been gobbled up by the middlemen,” he added.
Notably, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi himself admitted that out of every Rs 1 sent to the poor and downtrodden, about 85 paise went into the pockets of middlemen and only 15 paise reached the intended beneficiaries.
PM Modi further explaining the thrust of technology in his governance, said that it makes the records transparent and administration more efficient.
He further elucidated how two factors — policy-driven governance and saturation of schemes — worked wonders in containing corruption to a large extent.
“When the policy is laid out in black and white, the grey area is brought down to minimal levels, this reduces the scope for any discrimination. We have focussed on policy-driven governance,” PM Modi said.
He further said that saturation of schemes gives a guarantee for corruption-free governance, it gives a guarantee of social security.
“We have focused on 100 per cent delivery of schemes to targeted beneficiaries. If people are convinced that they are bound to get benefits sooner or later, this leaves no room for corruption. Some mischievous elements may still try to spoil the system but can’t befool the beneficiaries for long,” PM Modi said.
–IANS
mr/pgh
