UPA Policies & Scams- 2004 to 2014 (2 Viewers)

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Policy Paralysis | socialsciences.in

According to Public administration dictionary Policy paralysis refers to the delays, inaction and inability to take policy decisions by the government or its various departments and agencies which runs the country and the economy. Policy Paralysis stalls the economy and growth of a country.
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White paper on upa economy
 

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www.governancenow.com

Legislative paralysis spells RIP for UPA

Governance on auto-pilot
www.governancenow.com www.governancenow.com

Legislative paralysis spells RIP for UPA
Governance on auto-pilot

prasanna
Prasanna Mohanty | December 14, 2011


Only spiders seem busy these days
Only spiders seem busy these days

On November 21, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of planning commission and a key policymaker of the UPA, made a confession: "By February (2012), you will have the January data and if it turns out that inflation is not coming down by then, then we really don't know what we are doing."

This came after three years of consistently predicting that inflation would come down after the next rabi or kharif harvest. Harvests have been consistently good too, but inflation shows no abating, barring a marginal dip so typical at this time of the year. He may still be hoping for a miracle but few would wait until February to endorse that he and his mentor prime minister Manmohan Singh, or anybody else in the UPA for that matter, really know what they are doing.

Look at some recent developments:

* Last week, the government rolled back its FDI policy after the cabinet endorsed it;

* Two bills – Copyright (Amendment) Bill and Commercial Divisions in High Court Bill – were withdrawn in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. The first one because of conflict of interest: Kapil Sibal was piloting the bill, but his son is counsel for a music company which stood to benefit from it. And the second one because even Salman Khurshid piloting the bill, which had already been passed by Lok Sabha, acknowledged that it had far too many flaws.

* Tuesday saw the cabinet holding back the Food Security Bill because of strong protest from the allies - NCP and Trinamool Congress.

* Lokpal Bill is stuck because not only the opposition but even the ruling Congress members disagree to some of its key formulations through their dissent notes to the standing committee report. Everyone agrees, and that includes the Congress, the bill is flawed. Anna is waiting to start his next round of fasting from December 27.

* Parliamentary standing committees have shot down three bills relating to UID and higher FDI in insurance and pension, saying these are flawed, directionless or simply, bad policies to adopt.

* Two key economic reforms – (i) Direct Tax Code (DTC), proposed in the budget a couple of years ago, is yet to be notified or implemented and (ii) Goods and Services Tax (GST) is stuck because of strong political opposition.

* Cabinet cleared three bills on Tuesday – Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill, Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making the Disclosures Bill and Right to Grievance Redress Bill.

All the three are flawed and fail to address the issues they seek to address. Their passage, which looks highly unlikely in this parliament session at least, will in no way make a material difference to the existing arrangement.

There are other worries.

*Apart from these, the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for October 2011 reflects a recessionary trend. It shows a minus 5.1 percent growth. Manufacturing, mining and capital goods are all showing negative growth. And this has a lot to do with 13 hikes in interest rate that the RBI has affected in the past two years.

The RBI wanted to check inflation by interest hikes but such hikes have ended up spiking industrial growth as investment has dried up. Economists have been crying hoarse that inflation is a supply side issue while interest hikes are meant to address the demand side issues and would prove counter-productive. It has.

*Revenue collection is way below the expectation and deficit is growing. Money has weakened considerably – a dollar now costs close to Rs 54, from Rs 45 or less in August this year.

The UPA II began its innings in 2009 with confidence. There was no Left Front to arm-twist it and hence there was no CMP (common minimum programme) – the policy framework that guided UPA I. Confidence seemingly turned to over-confidence and policy paralysis set in. A series of scams followed - 2G, CWG, Adarsh, IPLA, Isro spectrum etc. Simultaneously, a runaway inflation struck. Then came Anna Hazare and now, a legislative paralysis.

Nobody is talking about the mid-term polls yet. Polls are expensive business. The opposition is not yet ready to throw its hat in the ring. So the government survives, but only technically, like a brain dead man. Unable and seemingly incapable of doing anything.
 
www.ndtv.com

Video | FDI in retail paused, back to policy paralysis

The government's decision to put the FDI in retail proposal on hold has raised question marks about the credentials of the 'reformist' Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It's not just the Prime Minister, the entire UPA II government today is facing strong criticism - specially from India Inc - for...
www.ndtv.com
 
www.thehindu.com

Paralysis in science policies

Neglect of research in higher education has led to very low research intensity. Ninety per cent of our universities end up as teaching institutes where research is given a low priority for lack of funds
www.thehindu.com www.thehindu.com

Paralysis in science policies
Neglect of research in higher education has led to very low research intensity. Ninety per cent of our universities end up as teaching institutes where research is given a low priority for lack of funds
Updated - November 17, 2021 01:02 am IST

V. V. Krishna
In the last few years, the government has announced a number of policies in science and technology which include bills on patents, specialised innovation universities and regulatory measures. These are supposed to power India’s growth engine via science and technology and, at the same time, enable the country to keep pace with the comity of nations. Unfortunately, the Manmohan Singh government’s policy paralysis is not just confined to the social and economic sectors, but also manifests itself quite prominently across various segments of science and technology institutions including research in universities. The failure of the government in this area stems from poor governance mechanisms, as from low priority accorded to science and technology in the overall budget.


Falling behind R&D
Ever since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power, Dr. Singh has promised to increase the gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GERD). He committed two per cent of GDP and reiterated it every year since 2007 at the annual session of the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA). In the last nine years, Indian GERD to GDP either stagnated at 0.9 per cent or even relatively declined adjusted to inflation; 58 per cent of GERD is consumed by the strategic sectors (atomic energy, defence and space research) and about 29 per cent is met by the private sector. So, what is left for civilian R&D, spanning a dozen or so science agencies, is rather pathetic. Look at what is happening in Asia! The Chinese GERD witnessed a dramatic increase from one per cent to 1.84 per cent of GDP in the last decade. In 2012, Japan spent 3.26 per cent, South Korea 3.74 per cent, and Singapore 2.8 per cent. After a decade, the government announced a new Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2013 or STIP 2013. The scientific community and the nation were left disappointed as the government had failed to fulfil its earlier commitment. There has been no commitment to increase public R&D. The government will only match the private R&D investment to bring it to the level of two per cent of GDP. When is this going to happen?

Realistic goals?
The new policy envisages “positioning India among the top five global scientific powers by 2020,” increasing the number of full-time research and development personnel by two-thirds within five years, and increasing publications from the current 3.5 per cent of global share to around seven per cent by 2020. Not only this, the policy aims at increasing the publication record in the world’s top one per cent of journals fourfold. India has already fallen behind China and emerging economies on these indicators. For instance, India produced three times the science output of China in the 1990s with a comparable GERD. Today, China has overtaken India by more than three times. It is the same in the case of patents. Why have we fallen behind so much? This is not unrelated to massive R&D investments by China in the last decade. The continuing policy paralysis in science and technology is visible across various segments of S&T. Even after the Fukushima disaster, Dr. Singh has been relentlessly batting for new nuclear plants costing several billions of dollars in the coming decade. The newly inaugurated plant complex at Gorakhpur, Haryana, is estimated at Rs.23,502 crore. According to research studies, just 25 per cent of the future nuclear budget for renewable energy sources (wind, solar, biomass etc) will generate almost double the energy planned in a more sustainable manner. Ninety per cent of water in India is consumed by agriculture, yet we have no inclusive energy-water policy. The list runs across several sub-sectors. Let us look at two of them

R&D in higher education has been the prime victim of policy paralysis. There are over 600 universities and 30,000 colleges with a GERD of around 18. Though universities contributed 52 per cent of the total national research publication output in the last decade, they were allocated a dismal 4.1 per cent of GERD. In fact, this has been the case for six decades since independence. Universities in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 25 countries accounted for 20 per cent and Japanese universities accounted for around 15 per cent of GERD in the last decade. Even Chinese universities increased their share of GERD from five per cent in the 1990s to 12 per cent currently. The neglect of research in higher education has led to very low research intensity; 90 per cent of our universities end up as teaching institutes where research is given a low priority for lack of funds. Policy measures to increase research intensity in universities and nurture them to attain world-class standards in China, South Korea, Singapore and Japan were a part of their respective national innovation strategies since the 1990s. Such policies enabled two to six universities in these countries to be listed in the World’s Top 100 University Rankings in recent years. India could not register even one. Just four to five universities figure in the list of 400 or 500. STIP 2013 is silent on strengthening research in higher education. Ninety per cent of the National Knowledge Commission’s recommendations remain unimplemented as much as the proposal to create 14 innovation universities. Until the higher education sector is given its due importance in the national innovation system and allocated at least 10 per cent of GERD, it will continue to remain sub-critical at the national level and we will fall behind our Asian neighbours.

Innovation
After the President of India declared 2010–2020 the “Decade of Innovation,” STIP 2013 proposed new schemes such as the “Risky Idea Fund” and “Small Idea Small Money.” The government launched the India Inclusive Innovation Fund (IIIF) under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model, with the government chipping in with just two per cent of the budget. But private partners have hardly evinced any enthusiasm to invest in this scheme. Is the government serious? The policy paralysis in science and technology innovation can be seen from the dismal amount of money allocated to a dozen innovation schemes under the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). Out of the total budget of Rs.2,998 crore given to the DSIR in 2011, only Rs.155 crore went to innovation schemes. And, of the Rs.2,349 crore given to the DST in 2012, only Rs.57 crore went to innovation schemes.

With 90 per cent of Indian labour in the informal sector and faced with dwindling fortunes of rural agricultural activity, millions will migrate from the rural to urban areas in the coming decade. The UPA government launched a number of schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme; Bharat Nirman; Indira Awaas Yojna; Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission; Health Mission, among others. Besides problems underlying their governance and implementation, which are well known, they lack an institutional framework to infuse employment potential with skills, training and grass-root innovation. There is hardly any serious policy perspective or thinking to create institutional avenues for vocational training to infuse skills to labour in the informal sector. There are about 7,500 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) with the overall intake capacity of 75,000. With the growing demand for technicians and an expanding informal sector, one can imagine the task ahead. Long-term solutions to problems here are so complex and are becoming even more interconnected. We have so far failed to evolve any strategy to connect with these schemes at the “bottom of the pyramid.” IIIF is a good scheme if it gets off the ground with a full budget. In any case, such schemes managed by corporate fund managers are relevant more at the “middle of the pyramid” and not the “bottom.” We urgently need to build and strengthen intermediary institutions to forge linkages between formal and informal institutional structures. It is time the government wakes up to addressing the impending S&T policy paralysis before it is too late.
 
www.thehindu.com

Paralysis in science policies

Neglect of research in higher education has led to very low research intensity. Ninety per cent of our universities end up as teaching institutes where research is given a low priority for lack of funds
www.thehindu.com www.thehindu.com

Paralysis in science policies
Neglect of research in higher education has led to very low research intensity. Ninety per cent of our universities end up as teaching institutes where research is given a low priority for lack of funds
Updated - November 17, 2021 01:02 am IST

V. V. Krishna
In the last few years, the government has announced a number of policies in science and technology which include bills on patents, specialised innovation universities and regulatory measures. These are supposed to power India’s growth engine via science and technology and, at the same time, enable the country to keep pace with the comity of nations. Unfortunately, the Manmohan Singh government’s policy paralysis is not just confined to the social and economic sectors, but also manifests itself quite prominently across various segments of science and technology institutions including research in universities. The failure of the government in this area stems from poor governance mechanisms, as from low priority accorded to science and technology in the overall budget.


Falling behind R&D
Ever since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power, Dr. Singh has promised to increase the gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GERD). He committed two per cent of GDP and reiterated it every year since 2007 at the annual session of the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA). In the last nine years, Indian GERD to GDP either stagnated at 0.9 per cent or even relatively declined adjusted to inflation; 58 per cent of GERD is consumed by the strategic sectors (atomic energy, defence and space research) and about 29 per cent is met by the private sector. So, what is left for civilian R&D, spanning a dozen or so science agencies, is rather pathetic. Look at what is happening in Asia! The Chinese GERD witnessed a dramatic increase from one per cent to 1.84 per cent of GDP in the last decade. In 2012, Japan spent 3.26 per cent, South Korea 3.74 per cent, and Singapore 2.8 per cent. After a decade, the government announced a new Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2013 or STIP 2013. The scientific community and the nation were left disappointed as the government had failed to fulfil its earlier commitment. There has been no commitment to increase public R&D. The government will only match the private R&D investment to bring it to the level of two per cent of GDP. When is this going to happen?

Realistic goals?
The new policy envisages “positioning India among the top five global scientific powers by 2020,” increasing the number of full-time research and development personnel by two-thirds within five years, and increasing publications from the current 3.5 per cent of global share to around seven per cent by 2020. Not only this, the policy aims at increasing the publication record in the world’s top one per cent of journals fourfold. India has already fallen behind China and emerging economies on these indicators. For instance, India produced three times the science output of China in the 1990s with a comparable GERD. Today, China has overtaken India by more than three times. It is the same in the case of patents. Why have we fallen behind so much? This is not unrelated to massive R&D investments by China in the last decade. The continuing policy paralysis in science and technology is visible across various segments of S&T. Even after the Fukushima disaster, Dr. Singh has been relentlessly batting for new nuclear plants costing several billions of dollars in the coming decade. The newly inaugurated plant complex at Gorakhpur, Haryana, is estimated at Rs.23,502 crore. According to research studies, just 25 per cent of the future nuclear budget for renewable energy sources (wind, solar, biomass etc) will generate almost double the energy planned in a more sustainable manner. Ninety per cent of water in India is consumed by agriculture, yet we have no inclusive energy-water policy. The list runs across several sub-sectors. Let us look at two of them

R&D in higher education has been the prime victim of policy paralysis. There are over 600 universities and 30,000 colleges with a GERD of around 18. Though universities contributed 52 per cent of the total national research publication output in the last decade, they were allocated a dismal 4.1 per cent of GERD. In fact, this has been the case for six decades since independence. Universities in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 25 countries accounted for 20 per cent and Japanese universities accounted for around 15 per cent of GERD in the last decade. Even Chinese universities increased their share of GERD from five per cent in the 1990s to 12 per cent currently. The neglect of research in higher education has led to very low research intensity; 90 per cent of our universities end up as teaching institutes where research is given a low priority for lack of funds. Policy measures to increase research intensity in universities and nurture them to attain world-class standards in China, South Korea, Singapore and Japan were a part of their respective national innovation strategies since the 1990s. Such policies enabled two to six universities in these countries to be listed in the World’s Top 100 University Rankings in recent years. India could not register even one. Just four to five universities figure in the list of 400 or 500. STIP 2013 is silent on strengthening research in higher education. Ninety per cent of the National Knowledge Commission’s recommendations remain unimplemented as much as the proposal to create 14 innovation universities. Until the higher education sector is given its due importance in the national innovation system and allocated at least 10 per cent of GERD, it will continue to remain sub-critical at the national level and we will fall behind our Asian neighbours.

Innovation
After the President of India declared 2010–2020 the “Decade of Innovation,” STIP 2013 proposed new schemes such as the “Risky Idea Fund” and “Small Idea Small Money.” The government launched the India Inclusive Innovation Fund (IIIF) under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model, with the government chipping in with just two per cent of the budget. But private partners have hardly evinced any enthusiasm to invest in this scheme. Is the government serious? The policy paralysis in science and technology innovation can be seen from the dismal amount of money allocated to a dozen innovation schemes under the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). Out of the total budget of Rs.2,998 crore given to the DSIR in 2011, only Rs.155 crore went to innovation schemes. And, of the Rs.2,349 crore given to the DST in 2012, only Rs.57 crore went to innovation schemes.

With 90 per cent of Indian labour in the informal sector and faced with dwindling fortunes of rural agricultural activity, millions will migrate from the rural to urban areas in the coming decade. The UPA government launched a number of schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme; Bharat Nirman; Indira Awaas Yojna; Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission; Health Mission, among others. Besides problems underlying their governance and implementation, which are well known, they lack an institutional framework to infuse employment potential with skills, training and grass-root innovation. There is hardly any serious policy perspective or thinking to create institutional avenues for vocational training to infuse skills to labour in the informal sector. There are about 7,500 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) with the overall intake capacity of 75,000. With the growing demand for technicians and an expanding informal sector, one can imagine the task ahead. Long-term solutions to problems here are so complex and are becoming even more interconnected. We have so far failed to evolve any strategy to connect with these schemes at the “bottom of the pyramid.” IIIF is a good scheme if it gets off the ground with a full budget. In any case, such schemes managed by corporate fund managers are relevant more at the “middle of the pyramid” and not the “bottom.” We urgently need to build and strengthen intermediary institutions to forge linkages between formal and informal institutional structures. It is time the government wakes up to addressing the impending S&T policy paralysis before it is too late.
 
www.opindia.com

As finance minister, Manmohan Singh had tried to allocate Rs 100 crores from Union Budget to Sonia's RGF

The archived records of the Indian parliament's discussion of the Union Budget in 1991-92 shows a section when, after the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh allocated a sum of Rs 100 crores to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, there was a huge uproar from the opposition leaders. | OpIndia News
www.opindia.com www.opindia.com

The long list of donations made to the Gandhi Family controlled Rajiv Gandhi Foundation seems to have opened a can of worms for the Congress party. After the links of the Chinese Communist Party emerged, the foundation receiving huge monetary benefits from the Chinese government had created a political storm.

Yesterday, it was revealed that even the Chinese government had made donations to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. Now, another explosive detail has emerged.

In a tweet, lawyer and TV panellist Shahzad Poonawallah has shared that as India’s Finance Minister in 1991-92, Manmohan Singh had tried to allocate a sum of Rs 100 crores from the Union Budget to the Sonia Gandhi-headed Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, to be donated over a period of five years, and it was stalled only after a huge uproar.

The archived records of the Indian parliament’s discussion of the Union Budget in 1991-92 shows a section when, after the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh allocated a sum of Rs 100 crores to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, there was a huge uproar from the opposition parties who questioned that how can the Congress-run government allocate funds for a foundation headed by the Gandhi family.

Not just 100 crores, Manmohan Singh kept aside 250 crores ‘if further needed’​

The Union budget document of 1991-92 made by Manmohan Singh also had another provision. It stated that a sum of Rs 100 crores will be donated to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation over the period of 5 years. The amount was to fund the initiatives of “Research and action programmes relating to the application of science and technology for development, propagation of literacy, the protection of the environment, the promotion of communal harmony and national integration, the uplift of the under-privileged, women and handicapped persons, administrative reforms and India’s role in the global economy.”

The Union Budget was to also keep aside another Rs 250 crores if the 100 crores were not enough. The section 58 of the budget document read, “Pending determination of the exact amounts that will be necessary for each of these new initiatives, a lump sum provision of Rs.250 crores has been included in the plan outlay of the Ministry of Finance.”

Union Budget 1991-92

Stopped after huge political uproar​

In the subsequent discussions that followed, Manmohan Singh had read a letter from the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, that stated that the Foundation appreciates the generous sum but it thinks that the government should itself invest the funds in suitable projects.
1752375103570.webp

Manmohan Singh’s response that it is the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation which had generously declined to take the huge sum, (after a massive political controversy), Janata Dal MP from Azamgarh Chandra Jeet Yadav had lambasted Manmohan Singh.


Chandra Jeet Yadav had questioned whether Manmohan represents the cabinet of the Gandhi family in parliament​

Yadav had stated that the Finance Minister is dealing with the budget very casually. He had added, “We are discussing the Budget of the country and the discussion is going on. The Government cannot take this kind of a most casual approach to allot the money of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and then withdraw it. From this, it appears, as if the Foundation is the master of the Budget of this country. The moment a letter comes from the Foundation, the Finance Minister comes before the House and makes a statement. I do not know whether he is speaking on behalf of Cabinet. Also, I do not know whether the Government had an opportunity to discuss it or not. This is not the way to deal with the Parliament of this country, which is the master of running the financial affairs of this country.”

Yadav had even gone to the extent of questioning whether Manmohan Singh was speaking on behalf of the cabinet as the finance minister of the country or he is representing the Congress royal family. He had even stated that from the behaviour of Manmohan Singh, it appears as if the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation is the ‘master of the budget’.

Rajiv Gandhi Foundation​

OpIndia had earlier reported that according to a document available on Chinese Embassy in India website, the then Chinese Ambassador to India to India Sun Yuxi had donated Rs 10 lakhs to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, which has links to the Congress party and is run by Congress leaders.

It has been found that the Chinese government had donated to the Foundation multiple times. It has also een found that soon after the Foundation received huge donations from the Chinese government, it went a step further and studied the feasibility of a Free Trade Agreement between India and China.
 

Roads, Railways And More: Nirmala Sitharaman's UPA Vs NDA Comparison On Infrastructure Development Explained In 8 Points​


infrastructure development under the Congress-led UPA (2004-2014) and BJP-led NDA (2014-2024) governments. Here are eight major takeways:
1. Border infrastructure: She said that while then Defence Minister AK Antony under the UPA government believed, "An undeveloped border is safer than a developed border," PM Narendra Modi believes that border villages are India’s first villages.
"Through the ‘Vibrant Villages Programme’, we are developing the border villages and strengthening their infrastructure," Sitharaman asserted.
"Budget for BRO (Border Roads Organisation) increased by almost 4 times from Rs 3,782 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 14,387 crore in 2023-24. -6,806 km of Border Roads were constructed between 2014-22, compared to 3,610 km in 2008-14," she added.
2. Turnaround pace: She claimed that while infrastructure projects were "held up for investment on account of delays in obtaining various approvals/clearances" under UPA rule, "PM Modi’s active role has made the infrastructure turnaround possible."
"PM has personally monitored the progress of projects, even those launched earlier, through the PRAGATI platform. This led to the successful completion of long-delayed projects. Through 43 PRAGATI meetings, PM Modi has reviewed projects worth Rs 17.36 lakh crore."
3. Expenditure on infrastructure: "Share of Capex in total expenditure dropped sharply under the UPA. From 23 per cent in 2003-04, it dropped quickly to an average of 12 per cent from 2005-2014," Sitharaman said.
"Our government significantly increased the outlay for capex. As a proportion of total expenditure, Capex rose to over 21 per cent in 2023-24, compared to just 12 per cent in 2013-14," she added.
"Since 2014, our government has allocated a total of Rs 43.53 lakh crore in Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) capital expenditure, an increase of 3.72 times compared to 2004-14," the Finance Minister continued
4.
Roads: "Since 2014, 3.74 lakh km rural roads has been built under the PM Gram Sadak Yojana, almost double of 3.81 lakh kms of rural roads built till 2014. Over 99 per cent of rural habitations are now linked with rural roads," she said.

"Since 2014, there has been a 500 per cent increase in the road transport and highway budget allocation," she claimed adding that National Highway (NH) network has expanded by 60 per cent in 2014-2023, compared to only 39 per cent expansion in 2004-14.

"Average pace of NH construction saw a remarkable increase from the baseline 12.1 km/day in 2014 to 34 km/day in 2023-24. -Share of 4 lanes NHs increased from 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the total NH network, improving the logistics efficiency," she added.

5. Railways: "Railway Board took an average of 43 months to sanction rehabilitation of bridgeworks, and they were completed with an average delay of 41 months" in UPA era as per CAG report 2014 quoted by Sitharaman.

She asserted that PM Modi worked for modernisation of Railways with modern stations, modern trains, modern facilities and modern technology, upgrading railway tracks and rakes for high-speed travel.

"In 2023-24, Allocation for Railways’ capex increased to Rs 2.43 lakh crore. It is 30 times increase over 2004-05, and eight times increase over 2013-14... The pace of electrification has jumped almost 10 times, from only 1.4 RKM/day electrification in 2004-2014 to 11.4 RKM/day in 2014-2024," she said.

"Under UPA, 14,985 RKM of rail track work was done whereas in the last 9 years (2014-23), 25,871 RKM of track laying work has been done. From 4 km per day in 2014, the Indian Railways achieved daily track laying of 14.5 km in 2023-24 (5,300 km)," she further added.

6. Power: "Under PM Modi, India has transformed from power-deficient to power-sufficient by adding 193 GW of generation capacity (249 GW to 442 GW)," in which share of renewable energy sources in total installed capacity increased from 14.1 per cent to 32.5 per cent.

"As of November 2023, the availability of power in rural areas increased from 12 hours in 2015 to 20.6 hours, and in urban areas, it increased to 23.8 hours. 100 per cent rural electrification was achieved in 2018," Sitharaman said.

7. Metro: "Since 2014, the Metro network has expanded around four times, from 248 km of operational lines in 5 cities to 939 km in 20 cities," the Finance Minister said adding that Delhi-Meerut RRTS corridor will be completed by June 2025.

8. Aviation: "India’s aviation network has doubled with the construction of 83 new airports since 2014. Operational Airports up from 74 in 2014 to 157 in 2024," she said.

"The passenger traffic has increased from 169 MPPA (Million Passengers Per Annum) in 2014 to 376 MPPA in 2024. -559 routes were operationalised under UDAN Scheme, which improved air connectivity to underserved regions," she added.
 
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