Modi 2.0 wants to set 100-day agenda for flagship schemes

NEW DELHI: The government machinery has lined up big-ticket projects and a revamp of flagship missions that will kick off as Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins his second term in office.

Working on a directive from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to prepare a 100-day agenda for the new government till August end, ministries have lined up projects for formal approval. The exercise will have the common thread of development with social welfare. The directive circulated to ministries said a 100-day agenda needed to be spelt out for every scheme and mission, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The ministry of housing and urban affairs, which spearheads the maximum number of flagship programmes, has proposed a complete revamp of the Smart City Mission to take the government’s urban reforms agenda forward. The mission completes four years next month, an anniversary that will be marked with a planned expansion to more cities beyond the 100 covered in Smart City 1, said the people cited above.

States have been asked to expedite the award of tenders and the conversion of detailed project reports (DPRs) to tenders with targets having been set. A senior official, who did not want to be identified, told ET, “The value of tenders has soared to Rs 1.32 lakh crore. Now, over the next one month, the states have been asked to award tenders and take this figure to Rs 1.5 lakh crore by June 25.”

Standards, which have not been framed so far, will also be introduced to give urban cities a framework. The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban), an affordable housing programme, will see technological intervention to give it a much-needed boost in the first 100 days.

The social sector ministries have prepared a list of projects that will be kickstarted within a month. The rural development ministry has cleared the decks for Phase III of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. This will be one of the first decisions to be cleared by the new cabinet, said the people cited above. The programme has already got expenditure finance committee (EFC) clearance and will involve constructing 125,000 km of link routes at an expenditure of Rs 1.30 lakh crore. The ministry’s National Rurban Mission (NRuM) will be extended beyond the 300 large urban centres developed so far. The new emphasis in the second phase will be to develop rurban clusters as nuclei for bigger cities.

Under the social justice and empowerment ministry, the government is planning to extend its scholarship programmes and ensure better implementation. The tribal affairs ministry has planned improvements in educational initiatives including a major thrust on livelihood and education. The government has prepared a detailed roadmap to finetune the minimum support price scheme for minor forest produce – an initiative that hasn’t picked up in the past six years.

There is increasing realisation within the bureaucracy that the government will not be able to brush aside implementation issues and will need to show results on the ground. A senior government official told ET, “Most of the flagship programmes have a mission period till 2022. So the milestones would be reflected on the government’s report card.”