Honourable Members,
1. I am extremely happy to address the first session of both Houses of Parliament after the elections to the 15th Lok Sabha. My greetings to all members, especially the newly elected members of the Lok Sabha. They are here having spent the last few months in the scorching heat trying to persuade their voters on how they could best represent the aspirations of their electorate. They now have the mandate and the opportunity to translate the hopes and aspirations of the people of India into change in the everyday lives of the people. It is indeed a unique privilege given to a chosen few to represent the hopes of over a billion people, a sixth of humanity.
2. I am sure that their anxieties, hopes and dreams will weigh on you as you commence your work. I urge you to use each day of the next five years in giving substance to those aspirations and in doing so, find greater meaning in your own lives. My good wishes are with you.
3. I congratulate the members of the Lok Sabha for unanimously electing the Speaker and that too a woman who is a Dalit with honourable credentials. This has enhanced the prestige of India's democratic traditions, that of the House and its members.
4. Last week the State of West Bengal was affected by a cyclone inflicting damage to lives and property. Let us convey our heartfelt sympathies to the bereaved families. My Government will extend all possible succour to the cyclone affected people of West Bengal.
5. I would like to congratulate the Election Commission and the lakhs of officials, who conducted the smooth and largely peaceful elections to the 15th Lok Sabha. Election to the Indian Parliament is truly the greatest festival of democracy in the world and this mammoth task has been executed exceedingly well. Democracy is one of the finest ideas that humankind has produced and every Indian election celebrates the freedom of choice that powers this idea. India has a unique place in the consciousness of the world as the largest functioning democracy. When an elderly woman in a remote village proudly holds up the indelible ink mark on her index finger, she is telling the world that she has the power to make change in her country.
6. In 2004 my Government had set before the country a vision of an inclusive society and an inclusive economy. It worked diligently towards translating this vision into policies and programmes. My Government sees the overwhelming mandate it has received as a vindication of the policy architecture of inclusion that it put in place. It is a mandate for inclusive growth, equitable development and a secular and plural India. My Government is determined to work harder and better to realize these goals.
7. A continuing priority of my Government would be to consolidate the ongoing flagship programmes for inclusion. This will require re-energising government and improving governance. It will require meeting the challenge of restoring economic growth, which is now hurt by the global economic slowdown, back to a higher growth path. High growth is necessary to provide the government the capacity to expand opportunities for employment. It is necessary to provide resources to increase outlays in education, health care and infrastructure to meet the needs of all regions and all people. My Government will ensure that the growth process is not only accelerated but also made socially and regionally more inclusive and equitable. The yearning of our people for inclusiveness - economic social and cultural -- and the rejection of the forces of divisiveness and intolerance that my Government spoke of in 2004 continues as both its inspiring vision and its unfinished business.
8. My Government is acutely conscious of the challenge of rising expectations. There would be ten broad areas of priority for my Government for the next five years.
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- Internal security and preservation of communal harmony;
- Stepping up of economic growth in agriculture, manufacturing and services;
- Consolidation of the existing flagship programmes for employment, education, health, rural infrastructure, urban renewal and introduction of new flagship programmes for food security and skill development;
- Concerted action for the welfare of women, youth, children, other backward classes, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, minorities, the differently-abled and the elderly along with strengthened social protection;
- Governance reform;
- Creation and modernization of infrastructure and capacity addition in key sectors;
- Prudent fiscal management;
- Energy security and environment protection;
- Constructive and creative engagement with the world and
- Promotion of a culture of enterprise and innovation.
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9. My Government will maintain utmost vigil in the area of internal security. A policy of zero-tolerance towards terrorism, from whatever source it originates, will be pursued. Stern measures to handle insurgency and left wing extremism will be taken. Government has already prepared a detailed plan to address internal security challenges to be implemented in a time-bound manner. The Multi-Agency Centre will be strengthened to ensure effective intelligence sharing and processing and Subsidiary Multi-Agency Centres will be activated in all States. The National Investigation Agency has become operational and will be empowered to handle terror-related offences. Central and State police forces and intelligence agencies will be expanded and fully equipped with the best technology. A national counter-terrorism centre will be established to take pro-active anti-terrorism measures. Special Forces and Quick Response Teams will be raised and deployed in vulnerable areas. Enhanced information and intelligence sharing on a real time basis, would be made possible by the creation of a net-centric information command structure.
10. My Government will actively pursue police reform and in order to ensure the active participation of the citizenry in internal security, community policing will be promoted. At the same time government will continue to constructively engage with all groups that abjure violence in the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country.
11. Communal harmony shall be preserved at all costs. The mandate my Government received was unmistakable in that the people wanted the country's secular fabric to be protected. With this objective my Government will seek early approval of the Bill introduced in Parliament for the prevention of communal violence.
12. Our armed forces are the nation's pride, a symbol of our values of sacrifice, valour and the spirit of national integration. India's defence forces stand committed to the task of defending the territorial integrity of the country. They will be fully enabled with modern technology to repel any threat from land, sea or air. To enhance combat efficiency as also to address the requirements of modern day warfare, a number of steps are under way. The welfare of ex-servicemen will continue to be accorded high priority. The Committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary, to look into the issue of One Rank One Pension has already commenced its work and expects to complete it by the end of June 2009.
13. The Unique Identity Card scheme for each citizen will be implemented in three years overseen by an Empowered Group. This would serve the purpose of identification for development programmes and security.
14. My Government was able to accelerate growth substantially in the last five years to a record five-year average of 8.5%. This produced an impressive expansion in high quality jobs and also gave us the capacity to guarantee rural employment and expand social and economic infrastructure in an unprecedented manner. My Government gave a new deal to agriculture. Public investment in agriculture was increased, farm loans of over Rupees sixty five thousand crore waived and there were handsome increases in procurement prices. These measures contributed to a revival of agricultural growth. My Government was able to expand access to education through a large number of new schools and other educational institutions, support a mid-day meal programme covering over fifteen crore children, provide nearly a crore of deserving students with scholarships each year, loans to over 16 lakh students and create a new wave of investment in institutions of higher education. It was able to revamp rural public health infrastructure and massively expand social protection through insurance schemes and pensions. Government was also able to effect pay revision for its employees including defence personnel, public sector employees and teachers in colleges. My Government could also increase assistance to States substantially in the last five years. All these initiatives were possible because high growth generated more resources. It is therefore imperative that our growth momentum is resumed.
15. The current financial year is expected to see a slowing down of growth on account of the global recession. My Government has responded to this unforeseen situation with a range of measures, including three stimulus packages, which have begun to show results. It is a matter of satisfaction that the Indian economy has not suffered the kind of slowdown that has been witnessed in almost every other country of the world. Government has also actively engaged with the international community, especially through the forum of the G-20, in order to ensure that coordinated action is taken at the global level and the necessary reforms brought in at the earliest. Our immediate priority must be to focus on management of the economy that will counter the effect of the global slowdown by a combination of sectoral and macro-level policies. My Government will focus attention on sectors that are adversely affected, especially Small and Medium Enterprises, exports, textiles, commercial vehicles, infrastructure and housing. This must be accompanied by measures to achieve a countercyclical expansion in public investment in infrastructure sectors including public-private partnerships in these sectors. Financing the investment will be a critical constraint and my Government is determined to ensure that innovative steps are taken in this area, consistent with a medium-term strategy of prudent fiscal management.
16. Our country has benefited from large foreign investment flows in recent years. These flows, especially foreign direct investment, need to be encouraged through an appropriate policy regime. There is also a need to augment resources in the banking and insurance sectors in order to permit them to serve the needs of society better. Towards this end my Government will recapitalize the public sector banks to strengthen their financial position and also bring legislation to establish a regulator for the pension sector.
17. The momentum of public investment in agriculture and irrigation built up in the last five years will be further expanded and the three major instruments -- the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, National Food Security Mission and the National Horticulture Mission -- introduced by my Government strengthened.
18. The flagship programmes which my Government introduced have moved the country towards inclusive development. It would be our endeavour to consolidate these programmes in the next five years. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has proved to be what it promised-an effective social protection measure and the largest programme in the world for rural reconstruction. Its transformational potential is unfolding before our eyes. My Government would enlarge the scope of works permitted under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act presently limited to unskilled manual work. The opportunity for improving land productivity through the NREGA will be maximized through better convergence of NREGA with other programmes. To ensure transparency and public accountability, independent monitoring and grievance redressal mechanisms will be set up at the district level.
19. The National Rural Health Mission has begun to strengthen rural public health infrastructure. The Mission would be consolidated to make perceptible reduction in infant mortality and maternal mortality in the next five years. Vaccine producing institutes in the public sector will be revived to support the immunization programme. My Government will expand the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana to cover all families below the poverty line in the next five years. Malnutrition has emerged as a major health challenge needing urgent response. Hence the nutrition delivery programme will be comprehensively revamped to bring it under the watch of panchayat institutions and move to provision of hot cooked meals in anganwadis.
20. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has been able to provide access to children to elementary schools and retention has increased on account of the universal mid-day meal programme. The focus will be on making quality education a right through the enactment of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Bill now under consideration of Parliament. The Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan will universalize access to secondary education. The massive expansion in higher education through new institutions under implementation in the Eleventh Plan will enable the country to meet the challenge of education in full measure. In the last five years, a wide range of scholarships and educational loans was introduced for the needy and deserving students. This effort will be reviewed and further strengthened. Government's strategy for higher education will be formulated around a three-fold objective of expansion, inclusion and excellence. The suggestions given by the National Knowledge Commission will guide the formulation and implementation of the strategy.
21. While male literacy went up to over 75 percent in the last census and is expected to be higher now, female literacy was only 54 percent in 2001. My Government will recast the National Literacy Mission as a National Mission for Female Literacy to make every woman literate in the next five years. Increased female literacy is expected to become a force multiplier for all our social development programmes.
22. My Government launched Bharat Nirman five years ago as a time-bound business plan for rural infrastructure. It has succeeded in reaching basic infrastructure of roads, electricity and telephone to a large number of villages. It has also achieved most of the targets of rural water supply, rural housing and has increased irrigation potential. The remaining tasks will be completed in the second phase of Bharat Nirman. It is also proposed to set enhanced targets for Bharat Nirman in the second phase.
- The Indira Awas Yojana, which exceeded the original target of sixty lakh houses for the period 2004-2009, will now take up double the target of rural housing to one crore twenty lakh houses to be completed in the next five years.
- Rural Water supply programme will be completed by 2011 and handed over to be managed by panchayats in the next Plan.
- The rural telecommunication target will be set at reaching 40% rural teledensity in the next five years and expanding broadband coverage to connect every panchayat to a broadband network in three years. The scheme for Common Service Centres or e-kiosks will be suitably repositioned to be a network of panchayat-level Bharat Nirman Common Service Centres to provide government services to citizens in rural areas.
- New targets would be set for rural electrification, irrigation and road connectivity.
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23. The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) with approval of projects of nearly Rs. 50,000 crore in the last four years is reshaping our cities and has been widely welcomed. It will continue to focus on infrastructure, basic services and governance reform and increase support to cities to upgrade public transport. Over 15 lakh houses are under construction for the urban poor. There is a need to focus urban housing programmes on the poor living in slums. My Government proposes to introduce a Rajiv Awas Yojana for the slum dwellers and the urban poor on the lines of the Indira Awas Yojana for the rural poor. The schemes for affordable housing through partnership and the scheme for interest subsidy for urban housing would be dovetailed into the Rajiv Awas Yojana which would extend support under JNNURM to States that are willing to assign property rights to people living in slum areas. My Government's effort would be to create a slum free India in five years through the Rajiv Awas Yojana.
24. My Government proposes to enact a new law -- the National Food Security Act -- that will provide a statutory basis for a framework which assures food security for all. Every family below the poverty line in rural as well as urban areas will be entitled, by law, to 25 kilograms of rice or wheat per month at Rs. 3 per kilogram. This legislation will also be used to bring about broader systemic reform in the public distribution system.
25. Government is acutely conscious of its responsibilities to provide greater opportunities for women, youth, other backward classes, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, minorities and the elderly as well as strengthen measures for social protection for categories with special vulnerabilities. Some concrete steps that are proposed to create equal opportunities for women are reservation to elected bodies at all levels, reservation in jobs and a National Mission on Female Literacy.
26. Over 50 percent of our population is below 25 years of age and their creative energy is our greatest strategic resource. The challenge is to invest in their education, employability and employment. India has the capacity to contribute to a fourth of the global work force if it invests in skill development of its youth. Education which provides employable skills holds the key for equal opportunities for Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Minorities. My Government has in the last five years brought in legal changes and investment in this direction. These would be consolidated. Besides making massive investment in education, government will focus on the national skill development initiative that has commenced operation with the very ambitious goal of creation of 500 million skilled people by 2022 so that we realize the demographic dividend.
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