New Delhi: It is not often that a band of top BJP leaders gather to launch a book. But when it is about listing the achievements of the Narendra Modi government, the case is different — model code of conduct or not. The Art of Implementation: How Modi Ki Guarantee is Delivered, a book comprising 16 research articles written by top ministers and bureaucrats of the central government, as well as by research students, was launched at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts on 15 April.
Modi’s close associates including Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Jammu & Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, and Haryana’s former Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar joined Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and Ram Bahadur, who edited the book.
Sitharaman and Sinha took the opportunity to talk about government schemes such as the Jan Dhan Account–Aadhaar–Mobile (JAM) trinity facilitated direct benefit transfers, which they said has led to significant improvement in infrastructure and dissemination of welfare schemes.
The book launch primarily focused on the achievements of the government. Speakers asserted that they completed projects stuck in the pipeline for half-a-century in some cases.
Modi’s people
Sahasrabuddhe said he worked on The Art of Implementation for 18 months. He added that the book has been structured in a ‘unique’ way. “Ideation to implementation involves science of education and art of implementation,” he said.
The book has been divided into three sections. The first three articles are by the ministers of the Modi government, with one article authored by Sitharaman. The second set of four articles is on governance and policy written by bureaucrats such as V Srinivas and Amitabh Kant. The last set comprises seven articles about delivery infrastructure by research scholars like Vinod Kumar Paul and Anand Shankar. The project has been helmed by Jayant Kulkarni, the head of SGT University, who was also present at the event.
Before Lt Governor Sinha started his lecture in Hindi, analysing the articles in the book, he looked at Sitharaman and chuckled, “given the model code of conduct is in place…but I still want to talk about some points.”
“For a long time, because of policy paralysis, there was a big chunk of bureaucrats who had lost confidence in India’s iron frame. PM Modi has worked to pull bureaucracy out of discouragement,” Sinha said.
He also said that women of Jammu and Kashmir have been empowered under the current government. “Half of Kashmir’s start-ups recognised by the government are helmed by women,” he claimed.
When it was Khattar’s turn to address the audience, he spoke about his ‘fond memories’ with Modi whom he has known since the 1990s. Delivering his lecture in Hindi, Khattar talked about the Prime Minister’s ‘visionary leadership’, and how a young Modi unexpectedly showed up at his doorstep in Haryana in 1996 with computers, urging state party workers to learn to use the machine.
Speaking about Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, the former CM claimed that the campaign has improved the sex ratio in the state. He also hailed the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as revolutionary for small business owners and state governments. “After GST, people have stopped fraudulent practices,” he said. Khattar’s statement is in contrast with the complaints of many non-NDA state governments. Leaders from south Indian states staged a protest in New Delhi in February this year, demanding GST compensation.
Meanwhile, Haryana’s improved sex ratio has been dipping in the past few years. At the beginning of 2023, the figure had dipped to 906 women per 1,000 men.
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Modi mehnat, not magic
When Sitharaman came to the dias, she was armed with numbers. According to the Finance Minister, the kind of progress India has seen under the Modi government wasn’t achieved by previous governments even in 50 years.
She stated that the Modi government had completed certain projects that had long been pending. Specifically, she mentioned the Kollam bypass, which had been proposed by the Kerala government in 1972 but remained unfinished until now. Sitharaman noted that other projects, such as the Saryu Canal project, Kosi Rail Mahasetu, Atal Bridge, and Eastern Peripheral Expressway, had also been initiated by previous governments but were brought to completion under the Modi administration.
Sitharaman outlined the government’s approach in “three silos”: prioritising completion of existing projects before proposing new ones, focusing on development in aspirational districts (which were the most backward), and working closely with the bureaucracy through the ‘Mission Karmayogi’.
“This is Modi mehnat (hard work), not Modi magic. He held video conferences with district magistrates on a regular basis to figure out how to ensure policy benefit reaches the last person it was meant for,” Sitharaman said.
The Finance Minister claimed that savings in Jan Dhan accounts have reached Rs 2.34 lakh crore, and through direct benefit transfers the government has been able to save Rs 2.2 lakh crore. “The money has only been infused into more welfare projects,” she added.
Beyond the JAM trinity, the ‘Art of Implementation’ that guests spoke about lied mostly in invoking Modi’s appeal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)