Social discrimination and divisive tendencies have no place in New India: Piyush Goyal

October 29, 2022October 29, 2022 MTIMES

Hyderabad: Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal has asked the Indian business community to give priority to Made in India products, addressing the All India Vaishya Federation (AIYF) in Hyderabad.

Emphasizing the need to promote industry and manufacturing in India, the minister said it would help increase employment and bring prosperity to the lives of our citizens. Endorsing PM Modi’s appeal to travelers and tourists to spend at least 5 percent of their travel budget on locally made products, the minister said our talented artisans, craftsmen and entrepreneurs deserve to be supported and promoted.

Shri Goyal pointed out that in the last 30 years India’s GDP has grown 11.8 times. He remembered that there was a time when much of the population concentrated on providing the most basic necessities of life, such as food, clothing, and shelter. He noted that the situation has now improved tremendously due to the government’s extensive focus on structural reforms that ensure that people have been freed from the constant struggle for the necessities of life.

He went on to say that the reform that was closest to his heart was the government’s success in building more than 12 crore toilets, bringing safe sanitation, a very basic need, to every household in the country. “It wasn’t just about toilets, it was about dignity and self-respect, especially for our women,” he stressed.

The minister said the government has ensured food security to nearly 80 million citizens by supplying food grains under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and an additional 5 kilos of food grains per person per month. According to him, taxpayers should be satisfied that their money was well used to help those who really need it. 50 million people are now getting free quality healthcare, clean drinking water is now reaching every household through taps under the Jal Jivan mission, he noted.

He described all these initiatives as essential work to ensure that our population, especially our youth, is unleashed for activities that lead to growth and development, thereby helping us reap our incredible demographic dividend. “Our youth are now freed from the struggles of necessity and are highly ambitious. They aspire to become innovators and entrepreneurs and drive growth,” he added.

The minister spoke about the need to ensure women’s basic life needs, especially menstrual hygiene. The minister expressed concern about girls dropping out of school at puberty and stressed that the government was providing sanitary napkins at very low prices. He called for more awareness programs to educate women on various aspects of menstrual hygiene to protect and empower them. The minister asked the AIVF to strive to ensure that every woman in the country has awareness and access to sanitary napkins in the next year.

The minister emphasized that India is ready to take decisive steps to become a developed nation, vishwaguru. He expressed confidence that India’s huge youth population has the capacity to take this quest forward. “India is the only bright spot in the world today. The world is looking at India with great hope,” he added. Noting that developed countries are now seeking to conclude FTAs with India, he said the world’s fastest FTA was concluded between India and the UAE in just 88 days. He added that the rest of the GCC countries are also preparing to sign FTAs with India.

Talking about the Prime Minister’s emphasis on the need to go back to the roots, the minister said that India’s history, culture, traditions and value systems have great strength in them. He called for an end to social discrimination and said that divisive tendencies had no place in the New India. Referring to the ‘panch pran‘ delivered by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, the Minister said that unity and oneness pran forms an integral part of the panch pran. He said that if India is to truly realize its immense potential, it is imperative that the entire nation works together in unity and oneness. He expressed the belief that if the entire nation worked together as one, our children would learn about our efforts through their history books rather than the glory days of kings, Nizams and colonialism