Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said villages should be developed on par with the chosen 100 Smart Cities to be completely self-reliant by 2020. He was inaugurating the Vijayawada Chapter of Swarna Bharat Trust (SBT) at Atkur village here.
“We are identifying 300 model villages that will be transformed into Smart Villages. Private participation is required to fill the resource gap”, he observed.
Mr. Rajnath Singh said the nationalization of banks in 1969 was considered a turning point but its purpose was not served as a huge number of people did not have bank accounts.
ADVERTISEMENT
It was a barrier to achieving financial inclusion.
The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) helped in giving a fresh impetus to the goal of banks’ nationalization.
The opening of about 18.02 crore bank accounts in a short span of one week demonstrated the tremendous response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to the people to open zero balance accounts under PMJDY even if they had no savings.
ADVERTISEMENT
Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had heralded the ‘connectivity revolution’ in the form of Golden Quadrilateral. He took several other major initiatives that helped the economy withstand the impact of global recession which dealt a severe blow to the so called economic superpowers.
It was because of the strength of the decentralized economy, which should be consolidated to achieve a higher growth rate.
India has got the technological prowess needed to compete with the best of nations.
Union Minister for Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu said SBT has plans to open its Hyderabad Chapter next year to serve the needy in Telangana.
SBT Chairman K.V. Vishnu Raju and Managing Trustee I. Deepa Venkat were among the galaxy of dignitaries present.