Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a ‘Parivartan rally’ in Agra today where, as expected, he spoke on demonetisation.
Modi was in Agra to launch the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awas Yojna, his flagship scheme for providing houses to the rural poor.
“In 2022, when India will celebrate 75 years of independence, the poorest of Indians must have their own home,” he said. In the speech, beginning with a ‘Bharat Mata Ki jai’ chant, Modi also expressed solidarity with the families of the victims of the train mishap.
Here are the top 10 things Modi said:
- The Centre will provide monetary assistance to the families of the rail mishap victims. This is over and above the assistance by the railways
- Under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awas Yojna, we will be creating different house models for each state according to their lifestyle. These are real homes, not just four walls or a box. They will have electricity and gas connections
- Crores of houses need to be made and it will take thousands of masons. And we have started a campaign to train a large number of youths as masons. Earlier, you never knew who MNREGA helped. Now we have said if a family builds their own home, it too will come under MNREGA
- I bow my head to the honest people in the country who are facing all sorts of hardships to free the country from corruption, black marketeers, black money. The poor have supported my move. Your hardships will not go to waste. I had warned about inconvenience. And as I had said, I am reviewing the system every 2-3 days to make changes as required. After this demonetisation drive, the country will emerge like gold refined by fire
- There was a time when cities could not even collect Rs 5 crore in bills, are getting Rs 15 crore in payments now. Who were these people not paying the bills? The middle class? No. Only those who hobnobbed with the powerful
- There are people who have been punished severely with this step. They are the ones most hassled with demonetisation. They looted you to fill their coffers. Do people not know who invested money in the chit funds? Today they are asking me questions? Is it not the duty of the government to safeguard the interests of the poor? My step will give the middle class, poor justice and their rights
- The banks have collected Rs 5 lakh crore. What will they do with it? They will have to give loans to people, and lower their interest rates
- Ills like terrorism and drugs are being funded by money funnelled into the country. All this was being done in cash.
- People had hoarded notes. They would say, “You want to be an MLA? Bring so many notes then, you can,.”. Whose notes were they? Of the poor and middle class. Such people have been most troubled by this step
- Some people are going around banks asking poor people to deposit Rs. 2.5 lakh in Jan Dhan Accounts. They are saying, let us take back Rs. 2 lakh, you can keep Rs 50,000. I urge people not to do this. You will land in trouble for no fault of your own
Watch the full speech here: