Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a speech at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) on Wednesday said the government was taking steps to address the poor state of banks in the country, and that noise around the Non-Performing Assets (NPA) had spread due to the previous government's misdeeds. He said that people of the country were tired of corruption, and it's the industry's responsibility to understand their needs and devise policies to make India self-sufficient. "The noise around NPAs is because of the previous government. Banks were pressurised to give loans to big businessmen; this scam was bigger than commonwealth, 2G or coal scam," said the PM, adding that the present government was taking steps to secure the banks and depositors.
Congratulating FICCI on completing 90 years of operation, the PM said even after 70 years of the independence, poor man had to fight with the government for basic services like bank account, pension and gas connection. He said the NDA government was sensitive towards addressing such problems. "When we started the Jan Dhan Yojana, we had negligible data on accounts. Now with over 30 crore accounts already opened, we know how much change this scheme has created," said the Prime Minister.
Shedding lights on the Central government schemes like 'Ujjwala Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Swachch Bharat Abhiyan and Pradhan Mantri Mudra Loan Yojana (PMMY), the Prime Minister said the government had created schemes to improve standard of living, especially women who have immensely benefitted with 'Ujjwala Yojana'. "A study has confirmed that fuel inflation has declined in areas where the scheme was rolled out," he said, adding that the government had created 5 crore bathrooms under Swachch Bharat Abhiyan. He added that under the PMMY, over 4 lakh crore loans had been given to over 9 core people all over the country.
Talking about the state of economy, the Prime Minister said the exchange reserve had increased $30,000 crore to $40,000 in November. He said the domestic passenger vehicle market grew by 14% in the last month, while commercial vehicle market, three-wheeler and two-wheeler vehicle markets grew by an astonishing pace of 50 per cent, 80 per cent and 23 per cent, respectively.
The Prime Minister said the government was taking concrete steps on the economic front, and that the job creation was increasing rapidly. "Under the PM Aawas Yojana, we aim to provide each family of the country a house by 2022. Several projects are being undertaken, and the resources are coming from the domestic market only," said the Prime Minister. Stressing on the need to understand needs of the common man, PM Modi said the industry bodies like FICCI should formulate policies on developing products outsourced from outside the country. "Many countries buy raw material from India and then sell complete products back to us. There's a need to find ways to make such products in India."
Invoking his vision for 2022 - when India will complete 75 years of independence - the Prime Minister asked FICCI to aim at building a new India by understanding the people's need. "There's a huge scope of innovation and development in food processing, artificial intelligence, solar power and healthcare. FICCI can set up a think tank to advise the government on developing the MSME sector," he said. The FICCI address was Narendra Modi's first address to the industry body AGM since he became the PM. After his address, he interacted with the past presidents of the FICCI.