Mita Nath
(mitanathbora7@gmail.com)
Maslow's Need Theory states 5 essentials every human being
desires - basic needs, social security, self-esteem to self-actualization
needs. Though needs are individual, individuals are a citizen of a nation and
nations play a big role in either helping citizens meet these needs or letting
aspirations die.
India as a nation had its citizen grappling with basic needs (housing, health, food, shelter) for a long period since invaders and colonists took over the country and emptied its wealth and resources. Even after independence, the ruling government mostly the Congress that ruled India for 70+ years could not do much.
Till 2013, India had 269.3 million people starving in poverty. The deteriorating condition of women and their health in India was a matter of great concern during the UPA regime. We saw increasing female foeticide, the ratio of females declining from 927 in 2001 to 914 in 2011 in the country, worsened child sex ratio. There was a huge decline (42% in 2010) in allocations for schemes meant for women's welfare. Women were facing issues like malnutrition, lack of maternal health, diseases like AIDS, breast cancer, domestic violence and many more. The unemployment rate in the country during 2012-13 was 13.3% for the age group 15-29. A majority of Indians did not even have bank accounts (35% as of 2011). The turnaround came in 2014 when the BJP government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over. Sharing a few of the needs fulfilled.
Poverty & food
In 2014 when the Narendra Modi government took over, India was considered amongst the poorest. The Global Hunger Index (GHI)-2013 report that is based on hunger data between 2008 and 2012, ranked India at 63 in a list of 78 countries, India has been rated worse than Pakistan at 57, Nepal at 49 and Sri Lanka at 43 in a region that is ranked among the worse in the world.
PM Narendra Modi undertook a massive drive to eradicate poverty and brought the country's poverty rate down from 27.9% in 2015 to 6% in 2021, i.e. from 369 million poor people out of extreme poverty to 84 million people in poverty in 2021. This achievement in seven years is a success story that no other previous government has achieved to date.
Today when the world is reeling under huge economic crises after a deadly pandemic, necessities have taken a hit. But India is the only country supplying food for free not only to a huge population of its citizen (80 crores), which feeds 1.35 billion people every day but also to another needy countries. Rich nations (United Arab Emirates (UAE), South Korea, Oman and Yemen) are appealing to India to provide basic food essentials such as wheat as they have a food crisis there. IMF Chief Kristalina Georgieva has publicly said that she begs India to supply wheat. Countries after countries are declaring themselves bankrupt (15 countries, including Sri Lanka, Sweden, Greece and more) but India is in safe hands. Not a single Indian is without 4 meals a day. Meanwhile, India helps Sri Lanka during its worst crisis, gave Rs 2 bn in humanitarian aid, provided Nepal with $142 million this year, $148 million to Mauritius, $ 47 million to Bhutan, $ 4.5 billion in loans to Bangladesh, $ 47 million to Bhutan. Not to forget the massive vaccine aids and supplies. The Modi Government exported over 17 crore Covid vaccine doses to 96 countries during the worst of times for everyone.
Had India been under Congress's rule, it would have faced similar situations of high COVID deaths and debts as our neighbours.
Medicine, housing,
employment
In a massive achievement, India's sex ratio has improved in 2021 having 1,020 females to every 1,000 males - clocking a female majority for the first time. Female marriageable age is increased to 21 years enabling them to be sufficiently matured, educated, independent and empowered to make the decision themselves. The gross enrolment of girls has increased in higher education by 18% from 2015 to 2020.
India is one of the five countries with the lowest median prices for branded and generic drugs taken as a whole. But when it comes to the cost of medicines for some of the most common diseases, prices in the US are way above the median prices globally.
The Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Yojana (PMJAY) of the BJP government provides the highest quality drugs, and medicines at affordable rates at almost 50-90% discount to their branded counterparts. Today India has over 5,000 Jan Aushadhi stores that cover a list of 800 plus drugs, both chronic and acute, across therapies like anti-cancer, anti-infective, reproductive and gastrointestinal medicines for the poorest of the poor. However, major pharmaceutical brands are not happy about it as 20 per cent of Indian pharmaceutical market sales have got disrupted by it. The report by Edelweiss expects that around Rs 6,000 crore of the Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India (BPPI) drugs could adversely impact around Rs 25,000-30,000 crore branded sales, assuming an average price differential of five times. And that is also why a lobby running a negative narrative against affordable medicine is active.
Besides, India has moved unimaginably higher at a faster pace in a shorter span of just 8 years. Today from basic hygiene needs of the toilet (98% coverage against a poor 39% pre-2014) to housing needs. A total of 3.4 million houses completed in 2017-18, were provided under the Prime Minister Awas Yojana (PMAY), the ownership of 80% per cent of which belong to women. The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Scheme, a flagship scheme of the Modi government to help women from the drudgery of hour-long smoke-filled, kerosene inhaled kitchen work leaving no time for self, uplifted women by providing 9 crores of new LPG connections helping and over 28 crore households with access to LPG, that 99.8% from 61.9 per cent in 2015.
Migration and unemployment have both reduced. In 2020, the unemployment rate in India was estimated to be 7.11% which further fell to 7.6 % in March 2022, showing increasing employment opportunities provided to job seekers, even though the country is reeling under the after-effects of a deadly pandemic.
Banking
As of February 21, 2022, the number of bank accounts opened under the Modi government's flagship financial inclusion drive 'Pradhan Mantri Jan DhanYojana (PMJDY)'—reached 44.63 crore and deposits in the Jan Dhan bank accounts totalled Rs 1.58 trillion. India currently has 887 active lending apps, being the world's largest market for Android-based mobile lending apps, accounting for 82% of all online lenders worldwide. As of January 2022, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) recorded 4.62 billion transactions worth Rs 8.32 trillion (the US $ 111.8 billion). In 2017 itself, about 80% of Indians above 15 years owned an account, a significant change from only 35% in 2011.
Petrol price management
Today the Modi government is providing both petrol and diesel at a much more economical rate in comparison to the world average and what other countries are paying for petrol. Petrol price in India is Rs 96/per litre, while the average price of gasoline in the world for this period is Rs 150.01 per litre. Petrol price in neighbouring Asian countries - China, Pandua is Rs 106.53 per litre, Japan (171.60 Japanese yen, i.e. Rs 104.86 per lit), SL (P-420/D-400), Bangladesh (P-108/D-95), Pakistan (P-179.86/D-174.15), India is also providing Diesel at D-92).
Besides the price rise of petrol, the Modi government has been the lowest in comparison to the Congress regime. For example, petrol price rise between 2014 and 2022 is only 36% (Rs 77/litre to Rs 96/litre) against that of Congress time of 60% during 2007 to 2014 (Rs 48/litre to Rs 77), 70% during 2000-2007 (Rs 28 to Rs 48) and even as high as 122% during 1979-86 and 140% during 1973-79. Similar is the reality of diesel prices.
Not to forget that the Congress government's oil bond left a gigantic debt bill of Rs3.2 lakh crore and other failed moves of the UPA Government that threw India's energy security into a severe crisis. The BJP government paid off Rs 20,000-crore payments against oil bond dues and interest. Total interest outgo topped Rs 1.6 trn, against bonds of Rs 1.44 trn since FY10. And the worst of all, these bonds were issued when interest rates were quite high, ranging between 6.35 per cent and 8.4 per cent.
Despite all challenges that the Modi-led BJP government took over in 2014, India has successfully marched ahead, considered one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and hence recognized as one of the G-20 major economies as well as a member of the BRIC countries, an association that is made up of rapidly growing economies. Today, IMF revised its prediction of India, saying India will reach the $5T in 2026 before its earlier thought of 2029 (Ref: World Economic Outlook Database, April 2022) based on GDP projections. Today world economists say that India is likely to be the world's fast-growing big economy (Ref: The Economist May 14th 2022). It will grow at 8.2% in 2022-23 compared to the global growth rate of 3.6% only.
Today due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's excellent governance, internal economics and external relationships, the value of my passport and me as an Indian had risen beyond expectation.