Women, youth, poor focus in 2019: Telecom minister

Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha says the Modi government has brought about a paradigm shift in governance and politics in India since assuming office three years ago. In an interview with TOI, Sinha says one of the biggest achievements of the BJP government has been to root out corruption and generate new aspirations among the people.

What do you feel the government has achieved in three years?

New aspirations were generated among people in 2014 because of Narendra Modi’s leadership and three years later, some of these look real with results on the ground. The PM had said that his government is dedicated to improve the lives of the downtrodden and

women

and today the policies reflect that motto. Also, PM Modi has transformed what politics stood for in India — disappointment and indecision. The most important word in Indian politics was corruption. After three years, people feel there is a decisive government while corruption has been thrown out of the window. More importantly, the common people can identify with the PM. So there is a paradigm shift in Indian politics.

Won’t your government’s focused pro-poor agenda put industrialisation, FDI and other development plans on the back-burner?

Both are complementary. Infrastructure is the focus and it will help industry as well as the poor through employment generation. FDI is coming in, say for instance; there were no mobile phone manufacturers here and today there are 75.
When Modi campaigned in 2014, his main thrust was the youth. What will be BJP’s target in 2019?

Going by the welfare schemes that this government has designed, it’ll be women, youth, poor, farmers, labourers and middle class, in that order.

What difference has your ministry made to the lives of people in these three years?In 2014, the ministry was in the news for all the wrong reasons. The biggest challenge was to restore confidence, bring transparency, and we have been able to do that. We held two big auctions in 2015-2016, and even our biggest enemies were unable to raise a finger. At the policy level, reforms have been initiated. Spectrum harmonisation has enabled 36.25 MHz of additional spectrum to be freed up in 800 MHz band and 197 MHz of additional spectrum in 1,800 MHz band. It resulted in making spectrum contiguous for operators, which increased efficiency and allowed service providers to provide latest technology. We have better service quality, speed, less call drops and all of this will give fillip to digital India. IT modernisation has helped post offices turn into core banks in remote areas. They will also function as employment registration centres and other utility providers.