Dear Editor,
As we all eagerly await the State visit of the Honourable Shri Narendra Modiji distinguished Prime Minister of Bharat (India) I would like to reflect on some of his most notable achievements as mentioned in “A Political Biography of Narendra Modi” by Andy Marino published in 2014, a British author with a PhD in English Literature. Therefore what he says in his book should be plausible to more discerning and skeptical readers as opposed to if what is mentioned hereunder was written by an Indian author.
It has recently been publicly revealed by various contributors to your newspaper that then Narendra Modi visited Guyana as a private citizen following a Hindu conference in Trinidad in 2000 and shortly after, in 2001, was elected as Chief Minister of the State of Gujurat representing the BJP. Modi believed that a major problem in Government was a lack of communication and is quoted in the book as saying “In government the major problem in our system is that the mentality is one of secrecy. One person is sitting at the table and thinks that no one should know what he is doing. All is compartmental thinking. In watertight compartments, psychologically and physically I wanted to change this environment.” Mr. Modi then had workshops organized until 10:00 pm in the evenings with all leading officials and conducted brainstorming sessions to ensure effective communication and then harmonious execution of government policies. He also perceived that government departments were always in a “fight” with the Treasury/Finance department for resources and he thought this was counterproductive.
He then virtually “opened” the books to all relevant persons to interact with financial officials to understand the state of finances, eventually achieving what he wanted in much less time and waste of energy with antagonistic exchanges. Instead this was replaced by a situation of more co-operation by all parties with various department heads trying to find innovative ways to cut expenditure and waste to help balance the budget. Modi’s strategies helped all persons to feel empowered and improved their overall efficiency. He set about asking his department heads to use modern technology to cut red tape and bureaucracy with the aim of making his state the most efficient in the country. This was achieved by all account under his tenure as Chief Minister.
Modi then initiated a platform under the nomenclature of “Vibrant Gujurat” or organized investment fora, which for the first time saw an influx of Chinese and Japanese investors who hitherto found doing business much too bureaucratic. To give an example of the meteoric rise in investment in the state – in the year 2001, Gujurat attracted RS 12,360 Crore in Memoranda of Understanding, 12 years later under his tenure as chief Minister it had risen astronomically to 17,719,000 crores! The success of Modi’s resurgent Gujurat initiative was astounding. He said “in Gujurat there is no red tape only a red carpet.” A great example of Modi’s success was the relocation of Tata Motors’ manufacturing plant from Singur in West Bengal to Sanand in Ahmedabad district in 2008. Surat which was known as one of the dirtiest cities in India today is one of the cleanest if not the cleanest all achieved by reforming the modus operandi of the Municipal Commissioners who receive support but also independence from the State Government with a clear mandate to perform at optimal efficiency.
The city of Surat in Gujurat was exceptional under his leadership. It had the fastest growing GDP in India doubling its size from 2001 to 2008. I quote from the book: “The personality of an administration depends on the character of the leader and he will eventually influence its culture all the way down the chain. Modiji, let it be known in no uncertain terms that anybody accepting bribes would be dealt with condignly without exception. This filtered through the arteries of the political system rapidly. Modiji was acknowledged to be personally not corrupt and even his worst enemies acknowledged this.” In 2005 Modi presented Gujurat with the first revenue surplus budget in its history.
Following this success, Narendra Modi was invited to both Japan and China to strengthen Gujurat’s relationship with major investors in these two countries and many others. One of Modi’s mantras we would do well to observe in this country is “Less Government, more Governance’. His 5 pillars of a development policy for Gujurat were Water, Energy, People, Education and Security – calling them Shaktis Sanskrit for sacred force. One of his foremost achievements under the “water pillar” was the damming of the Narmada River to allow irrigation of thousands of acres of arid farmlands bringing great relief to farmers in rural areas.
Regarding Governance issues, I quote from the book, “Modiji’s idea of Governance and its role in devolving administrative autonomy to local levels away from state Government led to innovations that awoke the moribund village administration committees.” Modi is quoted again as saying “people think that development is a Government agenda, I say no, development should be the agenda of the common man. Unless and until the common man’s agenda is development Government can build the buildings, but that is not development.’ To quote Modi again “In Gujurat we took the initiative: we started evening courts, the same infrastructure which was not used after 5 pm could be further utilized. I started evening courts from 600 pm to 10 pm .I gave special pay to the Judges and court staff.” Because of this policy between November 2006 and March 2007 50,000 cases were disposed of.”
Prior to Shri Narendra Modiji’s ascension to lead India as Prime Minister, I quote from Andy Marino’s book “for a free and democratic country India’s metrics are extremely poor. The World Bank’s doing Business Survey in 2011 found that in India it can take 6 weeks to register a property (a matter of days in US/UK) almost 200 days to obtain a construction permit, over 1400 days to enforce a contract and seven years to close a business.” Upon assuming office he met 77 senior government bureaucrats across departments surprising them by addressing them by name and told them to be swift, transparent and result-oriented in their work.
Punctuality improved drastically with the new PM at his desk very early in the morning after his daily 1 hour Yoga routine. Most Ministers and secretaries were to soon get used to long hours, tight deadlines, crisp review meetings and a sharp focus on results. The new Government immediately amended the All India Service conduct rules of 1968 which included a 19 point mandatory guideline with a mandate that bureaucrats were to maintain strict political neutrality and to take decisions solely in the public interest. In the interest of space I will mention only three_ – 1) Ensure courtesy and good behaviour with the public, display responsiveness to the public, particularly to weaker and needier sections; 2) Not misuse their position as civil servants and not take decisions in order to derive financial or material benefits for themselves, family or friends, and, 3) Perform and discharge their duties with the highest degree of professionalism and dedication to the best of their abilities etc. Under Modiji’s leadership the quality of public service has shown drastic improvement.
Editor, some brief achievements can be highlighted during PM Modi’s tenure to date, India’s growth rate of 7.4 % is the highest among the world’s large economies. India is now the 5th largest economy in the world and was only the 11th largest at the time Modiji assumed office but Bharat is now on course to be the world’s 3rd largest economy before the end of his 3rd term of office an extremely remarkable achievement. The National Highway has been expanded 1.6 times in 10 years, there has been 94 % of electrification of railway system while the network has been expanded four fold! Many modern airports have been built/ renovated including the Rajiv Gandhi airport in Hyderabad now the largest in India and the Manohar airport in Goa among several others. Editor, I am sure all of Guyana will welcome this distinguished world leader who is arguably the greatest in the world today in terms of performance and achievement.
Sincerely
Christopher Persaud