External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar recently said that everyone can make promises to people but the Modi government’s “strong point” is that it delivers services and projects in a given timeframe. Jaishankar also said, “After elections, they forget (their promises made to people), but in Modi ‘sarkar’, people today are seeing the delivery (of services and projects).”
By making these remarks, Jaishankar, as a matter of fact, sought to suggest that PM Modi’s focus on time-bound delivery makes him a cut above the rest. The clear-cut message is that political parties in the opposition bloc seeking to stitch an alliance to challenge PM Modi will find it difficult to find fault with the fast delivery system of the Modi government. The opposition parties which have been in the governments at the Centre at one point of time or the other will, therefore, be hard-pressed to convince the people that they would be doing this job faster than the present regime led by Modi. The remarks made by Jaishankar were also a strong indicator that the Modi government’s stress on fast delivery of its programmes would be a significant poll plank of the BJP during the upcoming assembly and parliamentary elections.
Jaishankar, in fact, set the tone and stage for the other BJP leaders and ministers to continue to highlight this “strong point” of the Modi government, keeping in view the upcoming elections. Significantly, Jaishankar offered some instances to buttress his claims about Modi’s focus on fast delivery of the services and programmes. Inaugurating an Eco Park in Delhi, he said, “This Eco Park will become a new lung of Delhi. I congratulate all who are part of this project. This park is proof that Modi ‘sarkar’ doesn’t just offer promises. It completes what work it starts, in a given timeframe, and delivers it, showing it to people.”
It is Prime Minister Modi’s vision “as whenever he sees abroad a process, say of cleaning a river or building a station or adoption of a new technology, he wishes to bring those best practices to India too”, Jaishankar said. In fact, it seems to be part of BJP’s strategy to showcase “fast pace of the Modi government’s delivery system” during public meetings in days to come. Jaishankar signalled that the ministers during public meetings would be explaining the details of the various projects of the Modi government which have been completed apace. That the NDA government is firmly focused on effective delivery and achieving saturation level coverage for key schemes is what the ministers are going to emphasise on. Needless to say, the observer of public policy must have noticed the paradigm shift in the scale of the programmes conceptualised and implemented.
The feedback that the BJP and other independent agencies collected suggests that the ambitious targets, which earlier appeared to be unachievable, have become a hallmark of the Modi government’s initiatives. What cannot escape the public attention is PM Modi’s regular interaction with the officers involved in implementation of the projects and programmes. He has been holding scores of meetings with DMs and other senior bureaucrats responsible for removing roadblocks and bottlenecks in the implementation of the projects, instructing them all to focus on time-bound delivery of government programmes and schemes to facilitate ease of living of the common people. On various occasions in the past, PM Modi was seen stressing time-bound targets for taking roads to all the villages of the districts, ayushman cards, bank account to every person, Ujjwala gas connection, insurance pension and housing for everyone. Entire country is witness to how PM Modi took on the challenge of providing toilet access to all households by 2019.
The target was matched with speedy execution as well, with construction of over nine crore toilets in less than five years. The BJP is apparently preparing to showcase PM Modi’s “Missionary” approach to the developmental projects in a bid to drive home the message that the NDA government under his leadership is unmatchable.