PM Modi launches new series of coins, portal for credit-linked govt schemes

PM Modi said India has developed various financial inclusion platforms and there is a need to create awareness about them for their optimum utilisation. There should be an effort to extend these financial inclusion solutions globally, he said.

“Earlier it was the responsibility of the people to go to the government for availing benefit of the schemes. Now the emphasis is on taking governance to people and free them from the rigamarole of doing rounds of different ministries and websites…this portal will improve the lives of students, farmers, businessmen and MSME entrepreneurs, and will help them in realising their dreams,” he said.

The Jan Samarth portal will be an ‘end-to-end delivery platform’ and more people will come forward to avail loans because of the ease of compliance, he said.

On the sidelines of the launch event, Bank of India MD A K Das said that this portal will help reduce turnaround time and facilitate faster sanction of loans to beneficiaries. More schemes can be onboarded as we go along, Das added.

PM Modi said that the government is focused on simplification in reforms. “GST has now replaced the web of many taxes at the Centre and the states. The country is also seeing the result of this simplification,” he said. Now it has become normal for the GST collection to cross Rs 1 lakh crore every month, he said, adding that there has been a constant increase in EPFO registration.

“We have shown in the last eight years that if India collectively decides to do something, then it becomes a new hope for the world. Today the world is looking at us not just as a big consumer market but with hope and confidence as a capable, game-changing, creative, innovative ecosystem,” the prime minister said.

Speaking during the event, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that each of the 12 government schemes will be displayed on the Jan Samarth portal. “This portal is going to make it easy so that citizens do not have to ask the same questions every time to avail a government programme,” she said.

Modi said the country has borne the brunt of government-centric governance in the past, but now India is moving ahead with the approach of people-centric governance. He said the youth have been kept at the heart of the reforms the country has undertaken in the last eight years, adding that youth can “easily open the company they want, they can start their enterprises easily, and they can run them easily”. “By reducing more than 30,000 compliances, abolishing more than 1,500 laws, and decriminalizing several provisions of the Companies Act, we have ensured that Indian companies not only move ahead but also achieve new heights,” he added.

The GeM portal has brought in new ease for procurement in government and made selling to the government very easy, he said. The purchase figure for the GeM portal has crossed 1 lakh crore, Modi informed. He said India has 70,000 startups and every day a dozen new startups are coming up.