BANGALORE: Declaring that his government has decided to clear “the jungle of laws”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said antiquated laws would be done away with to impart direction and speed to administration.
“In our country….there are many laws which have been made, which don’t have any relevance. They are of no use. If government has to work fast, if government has to work on the straight path the jungle of laws that has been created has to be cleaned up. I want to end all these laws,” he said.
Addressing BJP workers at the HAL airport on his first visit to Karnataka after becoming Prime Minister, Modi said his government was now engaged in a clean-up act.
“…We have been in government for a very short time. As we move into a new house the first thing we do is cleaning.
First the public did the cleaning; now we are doing it,” he said.
Modi was apparently referring to the popular mandate his party received unseating the UPA government and things it has to undo now.
Modi said, “People feel surprised whether the new government has to be doing this (cleaning) work, but you will be surprised that that I’m forced to do it.”
Observing that earlier governments used to take pride in making laws, he said they used to feel happy in saying that “we made laws, but I have decided to end all those laws which are of no use.”
“I have constituted a special committee; ….these are the things which create obstacles in governance and decision making,” he said.
“We have five to 10 laws on one single issue, laws which are over hundred years, over one hundred fifty years, over fifty years, and one interprets it the way he wants and stops work.”
“There should be direction to the work, quickness to it,” the Prime Minister said.
Noting that 25th September is the birth anniversary of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadyaya, stalwart of erstwhile Jan Sangh, he said he had been “a source of inspiration for all of us.”
It has been decided to launch a campaign from 25th September to 2nd October, Gandhi Jayanti, to clean up all the ministries of the Government of India.
Referring to the financial inclusion programme ‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana’, Modi said four crore families have already become part of it since it was launched.
“I congratulate all those who work in the banking sector for running a campaign to open bank accounts and making more than four crore families’ part of it, on my single call to do so in the shortest of time.”
He said when banks were nationalised it was said that they should be for the poor and money should be of help to the poor.
“… Thirty to forty years have gone by since then but banks didn’t come of use to the poor… are these treasuries, these banks only for the rich. Are they for big industrialists,” he asked.
With an intention to make banks reachable to poor, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana was launched as half the population were not part of mainstream of economic system, he said.
Speaking on issues faced by farmers, he said “we have implemented several such schemes in this short period that ensures prosperity and respectable life for farmers, so that in turn they work towards prospering the food basket of our country.” (PTI)