Dream of Surajya will be accomplished only with Sushashan: Highlights of Narendra Modi’s Think India Forum speech (Video)

By our correspondent, New Delhi, 8April 2013

Following are the highlights of Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at Think India conclave of TV18 group in New Delhi today.

-I feel pain when I see curvy routes of Narmada canal from flight. I asked and got replied that original shape of canal was straight, but due to pressure of various people like Sarpanch and others it was later changed. Our decision making process suffers due to pressures, and ultimately common man loses trust in government. Like see, these days private security business is growing. Why did this happen? If there was trust in government, this couldn’t happen. Once in the era of Akashwani and Doordarshan, people used to say that they heard such and such thing on BBC Radio for the sake of credibility. This loss of trust in government system is major danger, and when you lose trust on system and justice, it causes deterioration in entire society. And therefore government and governance is not limited to those who are sitting in power, and those who benefit from that.

-We have faith in God’s power, but not in government. The Sun gives light regularly, and we have trust on him. He gives light to poor and rich person. He has his own management to serve two parts of the world one-by-one. Common man puts trust in God’s power, but not same trust in Government.

-When human race started its journey, governments were not there. The system involved slowly.

-Modi said the state was celebrating urban development year and it was seen that whoever comes to power in local body employs his men in various department, Now municipality’s task is not clerical but its technical. It’s about roads, water, drainage – all technical tasks. But municipalities had not technical but clerical people. Delivery was not flt there because there were not people to deliver. When Gujarat celebrated Urban development year, we thought we would change the situation. We had 7,000 crore package and we put condition that grant will be given attached with such and such parameters. One parameter was about matching of population and size of staff. Then our civic bodies start resizing their staff. Now Gujarat has many infrastructure works going on, and there’s shortage of engineers. So we started a system of internship – like it is in medical colleges – in engineering colleges. And final year engineering students started working in municipality for a payment and experience.

-Modi said technology is very strong tool for good governance. And delivery system can be made perfect by using it. We have implemented one-day governance model. We set up 200 centers and 160 types of services are available there in one day. Any person can walk in the morning, and can get his task done by evening. Birth certificate, property map etc tasks would take a month duration in past, but with maximum use of technology delivery system has been made stronger. Government too has added income due to this.

-There’s a psychology that as politicians we are giver and people are seekers. Thinking in such way is crime. Government is like a traffic signal where you need to stop at red light and go ahead at green light, but when this fails to happen, there’s policemen. Connection of nagarik dharma and regulatory authority is needed. We can’t go on single track.

-Mera kya and Mujhe kya are two problems of this country. We clean our scooter before riding it, but we damage seat in public bus, because we don’t feel ownness. Therefore there’s a need of public participation. There’s a need for not only Public Private Partnership (PPP), but People Public Private Partnership. People’s contribution should be in same proportion. People should feel that yes in decision process he/she is there. This is my decision. People should be informed about what you want to do, why you want to do, and people should have chance to say. Once people are involved, they feel involvement in decision. Wherever possible, if possible, we would take their consent.

-Once upon a time a Congress leader in a reply to questions said that politicians should learn to say no and bureaucrats should learn to say yes. If this happens many problems will be solved.

-Modi said once upon a time there was only Human Right Commission. they due to political reasons we carved out Minority commission and SC/ST commission and all this. So instead of correct the delivery system, instead of strengthening the existing structure we started parting the things. We started increasing the size, but we didn’t add something to accountability, delivery. We continued to break up the institutions when there’s a need of integrated approach.

-In our nation, there’s no complain about not getting the things, but people complain when things go to others who don’t deserve. And this becomes a reason of lack of trust in government. We people of Gujarat are more connected to money and lesser connected with sweat. We have no atmosphere where you can see people playing in grounds. We tried to change this situation, and thought why it could not be improved. We found that there was a problem in selection system. If there was national sports event in Simla, particular class of players were selected, if there was a sports event in far areas of rural Maharashtra, another set of players were selected. We used technology, and improved the selection system scientifically and our players got as many medals as we had won in last forty years.

-There was a system of boiler inspectors. We abolished it and asked factories to get inspection done through outsourced parties and send certificates to us. Which factory owner would like to allow blast in his factory? Similarly we assigned inspection of lifts to civic bodies. Do governments go and check the brake in cars? We pulled out government. And gradually we should pull out the government from such affairs so that we can concentrate on actual job.

-Decentralization is another important point. We want to lay pipeline for gas and centre says no and we are fighting it in the Supreme Court. We would be at least allowed to lay pipeline. Centralized power derails the system and creates dissatisfaction. Then black market of gas cylinders grows. Shouldn’t we change the system?

-Government and governance are two sides of same coin. We can make feel their impacts differently.

Government means rules, government means delivery
Government implies authority, governance is about accountability
Government is about power, governance is about empower
Government is about file, governance is abut life
Government is about outlay, governance is about outcome

Modi said, “we don’t discuss outcome, and all discussions take place around outlay. Even outcome should be weighed against socio economic impacts.Suppose if we open school, and operate it but if village students are not studying then?

-Modi said the dream of Surajya will be accomplished only with Sushashan.

Official release

At the ‘Think India Dialogue’ programme of the Network-18 news channel held at New Delhi today the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said the government should develop such a governance mechanism on which a common man can trust. Terming the ‘government’ and ‘governance’ as two sides of a single coin Mr.Modi said a clear demarcation between the roles of them should be ascertained.

In the programme, which saw the presence of dignitaries from all around the nation, the Chief Minister said that a comprehensive discussion should take place on the subject of ‘minimum government and maximum governance’. “Minimum government is not about the size of government but the right size of government”, he said.

Stating that the common man has lost the trust from the government Mr.Modi said this situation is the biggest threat on the democracy and it creates numerous problems in the social life.

“The government and the governance mechanism which we have at present can not be considered final and there is a scope of continual change in it”, he said. The government should take result-oriented initiatives that can win the trust of people, the Chief Minister said.

He said, “People have trust on the rule of God but not on the rule of government”. The reason is that the nature is punctual in following the time of sunrise and sunset. This all-pervading and all-incorporating system of the nature is an example of good governance, he explained.

The mentality that the government is a giver and the public is taker in democracy is a crime. In fact a cordial bond between the government and the public should be established. “Everywhere you see people saying either “what’s in it for me” or “I am not concerned with it”. People’s lack of trust in the government wears down the social values”, he said.

Stating that good governance can not be successful without people’s participation the chief minister appealed to adopt P-4 model (People, Public, Private, Partnership) in the place of PPP model. The government should consult and discuss with the public before taking any decision, Mr.Modi said.

He said, “The present government is in the no-government no-governance state. A small alphabetical change from ‘FILE’ to ‘LIFE’ symbolizes a radical change in the entire governing system”. The government is too much adhered to the ‘files’, while it is the governance that can infuse ‘life’ in this mechanism. The government can only acquire trust of people if it delivers results through proper laws and rules and regulations, he added.

He suggested that while government could be compared to ‘outlay’ and governance could be compared to ‘outcome’, we should move one step forward and also go for socio economic review of the outcome.

During a question-answer session related to relation between centre and states he said the Centre should take into consideration the recommendations of Sarkariya Commission and Punchi Committee.

The Chief Minister also shared his views on the subjects like labour reforms, FDI policy, land acquisition policy and agriculture.