Thank you Chandrajit, my dear friend and colleague Dharmendraji, Venkat, Shobhna, all the esteemed friends from India, from other parts of the world, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I was wondering whether Shobha is going to invite all of us to go for Yoga after this, and I was very concerned about the rest of the day after this.

I think one stark feature that comes to mind when we talk about skilling is Prime Minister Modi’s own personal passion on this subject. I remember many-many years ago when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he had conducted a survey to assess how many different professions touch a person’s life from birth, or maybe one can go back before birth till death, and in some sense even post death. And you will all be amazed, the number of different professions that came on the table were about 5000. There are 5000 different people or skills that a person engages with from birth to death in a normal life.

And why I said post death is my late grandmother would never have probably seen a lawyer until after death the process of probate, and which was such a complicated process, and all the other people associated with that whole process, very true. So, like that each thing added up to about 5000 possible skills. From the day he became Prime Minister, or if one goes back to his Chief Ministerial days, he has had this mantra of speed, skill and scale. And I think in each one of these, this government has focused for the last three years, very-very deep focus.

We are looking at aggressively speeding up the various programmes of the government – any programme, you take up any programme, whether it’s petroleum auctioning for new exploration blocks, whether it’s the programme to lay optic fibre cable in the country where in 3 years we ramped up from 358 kms to over 200,000 kms of optic fibre cable. Solar power, we are now 6x of what we were 3 years ago. And the list goes on, on almost any subject.

The number of medical student seats that have been added in the last 3 years is almost 50% of what we had in 2014 and the list goes on and on. Scale has been a credo of this government. Speeding up development, speeding up action on a variety of very pressing problems the country had has also been uppermost in his mind. So, I can tell you that every cabinet meeting, he may recall some earlier discussion or conversation and say that it’s going slow; you need to speed it up.

But of all the three speed, skill and scale, I think the dearest to him has always been skilling – something he is personally passionate about, to the extent that that’s the only new Ministry that has been created, from a department it’s been upgraded to a Ministry in this government. And the focus is so deep that if ever he comes to know that any of the skill programmes of the country are still working in silos, he will make it a point to remind all of us that the success of the skill development programme lies in collecting all the small disparate efforts, make it a more cohesive programme. And a programme, which can then have a deep impact on the people, on the economy, on the future of India, the future of our youth.

You spoke about new collar; I think more and more India today is seeing job creators, rather than job seekers, so that would become ‘no collar’ probably. But truly, the way India is emerging, the youth of today is not looking at a structured 9 to 5 engagement, not necessarily at least. The youth of today is very passionate about the work he does and our job as policymakers, as industry leaders is more to channelize that passion, is more to get out that skill, that knowledge, that understanding that is there in each one of us, but probably never gets a chance to really flourish, to get in a very formal manner, in an organised manner really get that to come to action.

Dharmendraji made a very valid point that the compulsion of apprentice has been removed, and this government genuinely believes that anything which is compulsory is always to the detriment of the success of a programme. The moment you make it voluntary, the acceptability and the possibility of success significantly improves. And I think now we are encouraging more and more corporates and people in different fields to look at going up to 10% of your workforce, to engage them as apprentices and skill them.

I myself have issued instructions; we are working out a way how we can take them all from across the country and taken about a 100,000 apprentices in the Indian railways alone.

And, actually, come to think of it. These are nice, bright youngsters. They want to do something in life, so they are keen to learn, more often than not. If at all anybody has concerns that you have to absorb them in the service compulsorily, that’s been well settled, even in the law courts that these apprentices work with you, you pay them a reasonable stipend. It’s not even as if you are paying them some phenomenal amounts of money. And I promise you they work harder than your regular employees, because there is that fire in the belly to achieve something, to learn something.

My own sense is that the way different government departments, Ministries and industry or skill development programmes were working on developing skills in the country, all of us working to the best of our ability, but not cohesively bringing together what would round up a person’s ability to be a good citizen, to be a good workman, to be a good expert in whichever chosen profession. That was what was lacking for so many years.

Let’s take a simple example of housekeeping. Frankly, even sweeping the floor has skill sets associated with it. And I am facing it in the railways. So, traditionally, you would sweep the platforms in the railways or even the coaches in the train and open the door and just shove it out from the door onto the tracks, or from the platform onto the tracks.

Now, simple intervention of skilling that person to make him understand what the detrimental impact of that is on the track, on the rail services, a potential safety hazard, which my young friend Andreas was just talking to me about some new technologies on predictive maintenance have come up with. Now, all of these small interventions can actually have transformational results in the future of India.

A bathroom, a well maintained, neat and clean bathroom has very good impact on the health of all of us, and then when that skilled person understands his job better, he will do the same back home to keep his place clean. And then this will get into the culture, into the DNA of the country. After all, a clean India is not something alien to all of us. I dare say none of us would even throw a small tissue paper, or forget that, a chewing gum wrapper on the streets of Davos. But wouldn’t flinch an eyelid doing the same in our own dear country, unfortunately.

And that’s that mindset change that you were talking about that the entire country is working towards. Prime Minister Modi again and again repeats this subject about clean India, some people even, maybe stand-up comedians and all like to talk about it in a disparaging fashion. But the reality is that these are so crucial to the development of India, if you really want to see tourism grow in this country, if you really want to see people having good health standards in the country. I think cleanliness, sanitation, these are issues which really are of pressing urgency.

And, very often, when you drive home a point, again and again and again, it starts having an impact. And to my mind, I can give you an example of Banaras (Varanasi), where if any of you have been, it was probably one of the dirtiest towns of the country, absolutely impossible to even go anywhere except for the religious interest to be there, which drew us all to go to Banaras.

When we did the root cause analysis of the problem, what we realised is, same two issues. One – shove the garbage into the ganges, so you have a large part of the ganges getting polluted because of garbage from cities going into the river. And why was that so? Because there was no place for garbage disposal. The one landfill that was there was full up to the brim, local villagers wouldn’t allow anymore garbage, because then that would become a heap and create health hazards for them. The other place was a waste processing plant set up some 7-8 years ago, incomplete, lying in disuse; 200 vehicles for evacuating garbage there, completely run down, no tyres, no battery, no wire, nothing in that, just a shell, rusted shell.

And as is typical of this government, which is why skill development also has been the focus, or as you said the mindset of this government of doing a root cause analysis to find out where the problem lies, helped us assess that if that plant were to start and garbage could be evacuated instead of in the water into the plant, processed initially as organic manure, maybe at some stage later as energy, we would actually be able to keep the streets of Banaras clean.

Simultaneously, of course, we got in skilled or trained manpower to come in. We also started introducing door-to-door garbage collection and the holistic programme helped us… and restarted this plant, because of which the Banaras ranking on Swacchta ranking, cleanliness, improved from something like 400-plus to 30. That was the transition, the transformational change that can happen once we change the mindset.

And in that sense, I think taking up skill development as one of the most important pillars of this government’s development agenda, to my mind will provide not only India, but the whole world with people who are able to contribute both to the Indian economy, to activities around the world. We have also been looking at having more focused skill development programme, something like Singapore does. In Singapore, they actually assess to the last number how many people would be required in each of the various professions. So even a retail sales person in a mall is assessed how many will be required 3 years hence, how many people would be required as nurses 2 years hence. And for each one of them, the programme of skill development is conducted, so you have the right skilled people for every job.

In India, if we start looking at it in that fashion, there is huge potential. Only three days back, a skill development centre was opened again in Banaras for helping re-skill people in the traditional arts of diamond and jewellery and linked pieces for international markets. So, nurses, internationally there is a huge demand for nurses. Can India be their provider of nurses?

So each profession if the, and CII can help us do that. We can analyse, we can really transform the nation’s youth’s ability to contribute to nation building through the skill development programme. And I would urge each one of you to participate in that wholeheartedly.

Well, as regards the railways’ programme on upgrading the interiors of doing up better bathrooms, what we have decided is rather than the typical thinking in the railways, or most government work of a 10-year programme to replace the interiors in 58,000 coaches of the passenger trains and all, if we were to compress that entire programme into a short defined timeframe, maybe 15 months, maybe 18 months, then economies of scale will kick in.

So, let’s say you are redoing the curtains of the train or you are redoing the seat covers, right? If you are going to do small quantities in different parts of the country gradually, your cost keeps escalating, then you don’t get those skilled people to come in and work because they don’t make that much money. But if you aggressively go behind that programme, and say 58,000 coaches the interiors are going to be all changed. They are all going to be repainted to give a smarter look to the Indian railways, then you can actually bring down cost significantly and make travelling by train once again a pleasure, bring that charm back into the railways.

And that’s what we are trying to do, scaling up each of our products for speed. Of course, skilled people are going to be very essential while we do that, so you can (inaudible) the painting job if you don’t get good people.

You will be amazed when I became Railway Minister and I tried to assess why are we not getting good painted coaches. Not one of the top 5 companies in India who are paint suppliers were registered in the railways, not one of them. Because the volumes are small, the purchase is spread all over the whole country. Of course, many other things, we need not get down that road.

Now, when we started talking about quality standards, I think all 5 of them will come and I hope they fight like cats and dogs to give me the right pricing. But that’s the change that we are trying to bring in and quality, if that becomes the driver then skilling is an absolute necessity to get quality into the system.

I think the way the world is evolving towards 3D manufacturing or artificial intelligence; I think you all recognize the traditional way of giving jobs to people is now going to be history. I mean government, for example, at one point of time was the best job to get or a very attractive job to get. Today, a young person who is skilled doesn’t want to work in government, because that constraints his ability to have significant increase in incomes, particularly, with Mr Modi there trying to curb corruption.

And in that situation, when we look at the new technology regime that’s coming into the world, jobs are going to be created in a completely different fashion. I will draw from my days as a Power Minister, a typical 4000 MW ultra supercritical power plant could possibly create X number of jobs, it’s a large plant, generating huge amounts of electricity. It will mine coal, take it there, convert to electricity and transmit electricity.

As against that, in the new age that we are working in where distributed forms of energy, particularly, renewable energy is centre force of international discourse, for the same amount of electricity that was earlier generated in a 4000 MW power plant when generated through these distributed forms across the country will create 10x the number of working opportunities may not reflect in any job number that you and I may compile. But it’s distributed across the ecosystem, people getting job or working opportunity at their place, spread across the country. You don’t have to rush to Mumbai or Delhi to get a job, you don’t have to be standing in long queues outside factories to try and become just a casual labour for the day.

You are actually seeing people (inaudible)  new entrepreneurial roles for themselves and no better testimony to that than the fact that nearly 90 million people have taken a Mudra loan, the small loan, all of which aggregating to about $50 billion. And small loans, it could be as small as $5000; it could be as small as a $1000. And these small persons taking these loans are now (inaudible) small enterprises which then coupled with skills can help them expand their activities.

Ends.

 

Q: Minister Goyal, let me get you to come in here as Rachael says, we have seen the prices of renewables coming down dramatically, and solar in particular, down 70% from 2010 to date. Your thoughts on this somewhat controversial issue, international trade and climate change, all lumping together?

A: Well, I think India’s own thinking in the earlier years was quite different in terms of our ability to ramp up renewables, the pricing of renewables, and also the fact that India was never responsible for this problem in the first place. After Prime Minister Modi came in, particularly, during the discussions in Paris, at COP21, I think the dimension completely changed. India took a leadership role in promoting renewables in addressing the serious challenge of climate change. And instead of becoming an obstruction to the global effort, which somehow over the years had become the flavor, I think India has adopted renewable energy very rapidly. If you take solar energy alone, we have grown by about 6 times in the last three and a half years, and our plan is to go up to a 100 GW by 2022.

Effectively, giving a huge demand push, which encourages new technology, which encourages competitive pricing, and irrespective of its impact on the cost of energy, India has chosen to go down the path of clean energy. We have chosen that we will be a part of the global effort to promote serious-serious action on energy conservation, on addressing the challenge of climate change. And that path is irreversible as far as India is concerned, irrespective of what other countries may do.

Q: Minister Goyal, if we can come to you and back to that issue of policy, I think another element if I can bring into the conversation and has already been thrown forward to is that it’s not just the power sector that needs to transform, we are talking here about transportation, specifically, shipping. We are talking about the trucking industry which has to be hard hit from a regulatory perspective potentially to create that change. Let’s get your thoughts on it?

A: Well, when it comes to policy and pricing, India was amongst the first country to put a 40% tax on our cost of coal. So, about 2 years back, 3 years back, our coal going to the power plants was costing about $15-16 and our tax on that coal was about $6. So, in terms of policy, I think governments will have to be proactive to dissuade somewhat the fossil fuel generating sources of energy.

Oil and gas certainly will have its role to play. We in India are large importers of oil and gas, so for us, there is a added incentive to disincentivise petroleum products. And, therefore, we have a huge taxation on petroleum products, also because we do not want runaway consumption of petrol and diesel, also of gas.

At the same time, the important thing that was mentioned and brought on the table about electric vehicles, I think one has to look more holistically at the electric vehicle story. Of course, most of the west, everybody owns their own vehicle, so you are looking at replacement. Countries like India, which are still emerging, you would have 80% of our population which does not own a vehicle as yet, and we would love them to have a first vehicle which is electric. So, in some sense, we are not duplicating investments, first into the petroleum driven vehicles and then into electric vehicles.

Also, as he rightly said, it provides a natural hedge in terms of storage. And, what was just mentioned about the source of generation, then you can actually have power being generated from intermittent sources of energy like wind or solar. And without having to spend on storage, you can actually spend straightaway on storing it in the battery which goes into the car. And in the long run, look at swappable batteries. That’s the kind of policy framework we in India are trying to do.

Q: The battery technology has got to lead the charge on this one?

A: Yes! The battery will store the energy, generated at different times of the day and that will be swapped into the car, into the vehicle as in when it runs out, the old batteries, just swap with the new one and the old battery will then be charged whenever the renewable sources come on stream. So, one of the biggest challenges for all policymakers is the fact that we need 24/7 power, and we are not going to have candle light dinner in Davos.

So, therefore, end of the day, countries like India will have to dependent on coal, we can’t feed renewable energy into a grid. It doesn’t have energy flowing in it 24/7. So, in that sense, there will have to be a balance. We will have to look at energy efficiency in a bigger way to bring down consumption, and whatever consumption is there how can that be more efficiently managed through the time of day, so that the dependence on fossil fuel based energy is reduced. And policy can make a huge impact on that.

Q: Minister Goyal, solutions in the space in terms of encouraging that investment into clean cooking energy?

A: We in India had a very-very serious challenge, almost a 100 billion families, which were cooking through traditional means, literally having firewood come in and cook or using even coal sometimes. And that was almost reaching a crisis proportion in terms of the carbon that that created in the atmosphere.

We embarked about 3 years ago on a huge programme to take LPG to each of these families. We have done about 35 million in the last 3 years, in the next one year we will do another 15 million, and in the next 2 or 3 years after that, we will make sure that there will be no family in the country which has to use that traditional form of cooking.

But we have not rested on that. That’s only an intermediate solution. I am glad Rachael talked about it, because only last night, Prime Minister Modi while talking to business leaders touched on this subject that ideally he would like to go to the next level now. And we must look at what we can do with clean energy or renewables, and create cooking solutions.

Right now in India, we have been doing a little bit of innovation using very-very simple technologies, using the sun and trying to cook, maybe Maggie noodles or stuff like that, but then that’s just the beginning. The idea is that we will ultimately have to take clean energy and electric induction heating into every home for cooking purposes. And that means the ramp up for heat will have to be really fast. So, it’s I think a challenge for all of technology experts, but clearly that will have to be addressed, both in the African continent, large parts of Asia and maybe some parts of South America where this can become a very-very humongous problem in the years to come.

Audience questions

Q: And then I think if we can open up to all of the other members of the panel on massing the capital to deploy technology to create that efficiency effectively which cancelled our problems, Minister Goyal?

A: Well, I can share a very good example we have had in India, which will actually answer the question best. Personally, I believe energy efficiency is a absolute profit-making game, there is no cost associated. We have been using these incandescent bulbs for lighting in India for God knows how many years. And way back in 2015, we embarked on probably the world’s largest campaign to replace all lighting by LEDs. And I remember, the government used to procure LED bulbs at that time at about $6, and at all costs and taxes and marketing cost, and then subsidize it to make it viable proposition for the people.

We decided on leveraging on economies of scale, huge amount of transparency in procurement and we set a target to replace 700 million bulbs with LEDs in a span of 4 years. I am delighted to share with you that it’s not even 3 years, actually, 5^th January, 2015. So we have just completed 3 years two weeks ago of that programme. We have replaced 800 million bulbs with LEDs in the country and the price has fallen by 87%.

I mean I go to many parts of the world, and Power Ministers, Energy Ministers thank me for India’s contribution to bring down the prices quite easily.

Q: Price down 87%?

A: 87% down! So today, and by the way, I bought 50 million LED bulbs from Philips – I don’t know whether it’s improper to say that, but it’s public knowledge – at 60 cents a bulb, which was earlier at nearly $6, 60 cents a bulb. The lumination was 30% more, instead of 7 W it was 9 W. And the revolution that we have created because of that, we have reduced our carbon dioxide emissions by 112 billion tonnes annually. We have been able to avoid 20 GW of capacity, because lighting is usually in peak hours. And the saving to the consumer, directly to Indian consumers, is $6 billion every year. And what did that cost us, these 800 million bulbs? Less than $1 billion!

Q: We have got 10 minutes between the panelists. I want you to leave our audience, both here and across the African continent, and of course, those via web watching this broadcast, with the key elements as you deem them appropriate for the discussion on energy systems as we go forward for the next couple of days. This is your time to shape the conversation. You are passionate (inaudible)?

A: Well, taking a cue from the discussion earlier about a world by 2050, which is 100% clean energy, my own sense is it fits in very well with the theme of Davos this year – A shared prosperity in a fractured world. If one was to look at energy consumption patterns, instead of taking the country as a unit, but taking the world as a unit and transmission costs have over the years come down. They are more affordable now. You have transatlantic and trans-ocean transmission lines coming up. You have wind being generated at different places all over the world at different times of the day, solar being generated at different times of the day.

If one was to imagine, and I don’t think it should take us 32 years to get together. One can really, if we all put our combined might together and work like we did in Paris, where the 195 nations really collaborated in that effort, everybody brought in their INDCs on the table, save and except, a few most are working towards achieving that. If we were to look at the world as a grid, and in some small sense, we in India successfully experimented with One Nation-One Grid in the last few years.

And, therefore, I can say with some sense of background that if we were to look at the world as one grid and look at transporting or transferring power to demand areas at different times of the day, we could actually transition much faster to a low-cost future for energy, for a future where you could look at 24/7 clean energy powering the world.

And I think, as Pedro rightly said, innovation, technology won’t take that long once the dimension is set that despite all the issues where we have a fractured world at least on addressing the concerns of climate change, we are one, we are going to share our technologies, we are going to work together as one family and ensure a bright future for the next generation.

Q: I like that that ‘looking at the world as one grid’ when it comes to energy systems. We are one.

 

Ends.

Q: Minister, you come from a government that has a very sort of nationalist current to its politics, and at the same time, at least if I perceive it correctly, it’s not rejectionist of international institutions. And, in fact, in some sense is aspirational. India wants to be a part of these institutions. So, two things that are often seen as in opposition in your government that you seem to be trying to reconcile the two?

A: Not at all. In fact, if you look at Indian history, traditionally – and I can go back 5000 years – and today the honourable Prime Minister spoke about it at the plenary. The traditional Indian culture has been very inclusive. It believes that the world is one family, in Sanskrit it’s called Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. Traditionally, India always believed in an interconnected world, and the basic DNA of an Indian for centuries has been one where he believes that I should respect the rest of the world and so should the rest of the world respect India.

Of course, then we have had years and years of subjugation, the Mughals came in, the British came in. But post independence, if you see the Indian history, it’s been one where we have engaged very well with the rest of the world, initially in the non-aligned movement. After that, post liberalisation, the economy and politics have almost dovetailed and as India opened up its economy, I think diplomacy centered around economics.

And this government today, we have been in government for three and a half years. It’s a government that came in on the back of, as she rightly said, huge aspirations of the people, against corruption, against the old order, the established order, against dynastic politics. And while a lot of the western media, particularly in the United States, has used the word nationalist or Hindu right wing, the reality is this is one government which has never ever differentiated between regions or people.

The essence of this government in Hindi is ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas.’ We take everybody along and we believe the development should be holistic for everybody. And in that sense, I think there is no contradiction in our huge outreach to the rest of the world. Prime Minister Modi today has become quite a bit of a popular leader when it comes to engaging with leaders in the G20, leaders in the UN, almost on every fora. In Paris, during the COP21, he became a central figure around which the final agreement took place. And I think he genuinely believes that this kind of engagement with the rest of the world will be both good for India and India will be able to also contribute to a better world in the future.

Q: If he is right that’s suggestive we are dealing with a problem that’s not gonna be (inaudible), but that’s going to be deeply rooted in our politics for decades to come. Is he right?

A: Well, I think he’s raised a very valid point. With the advent of technology, whether it’s 3D manufacturing, it’s artificial intelligence, the old economic order is in a state of churn, it’s getting disrupted. What we in business would have otherwise called it’s a volatile world, it’s an uncertain world. It’s a very complex situation that we are going through. And there is a lot of ambiguity about what’s going to happen in the future. The youth are uncertain. There are lot of uncertainties about personal security. Some religious groups have started taking centre stage.

Now in this situation, because of this economic uncertainty, I think that impact is being felt on politics also. Brexit in a way was a result of that uncertainty is economic progress across the country or is it centered around London and its thereabouts. In America, the American pride about whether America is now equally powerful and strong as it used to be, or have other countries taken over. So, it was about getting the American pride back in which probably helped Trump get the attention of the people.

So, in that sense, I think across the world the youth today in a 24/7 connected world, breaking news, Politico coming out with very-very new dimensions to what’s happening across the world. Sometimes, the news may not always be the whole truth also. It may be derived news. It may be implicit conjectures being made. And in this interconnected world, actions lead to immediate reactions, there’s hardly any time to verify. Social media outreach has just gone beyond imagination, so whatever we are saying here it could lead to a huge disconnect somewhere in the world, somebody may misunderstand a small statement made here and lead to chaos in some part of the world. And in this kind of a situation, I think political philosophies; the established political philosophies are going to certainly see change.

A: I personally think we are overstating the problem. He certainly will have an impact on the future of the American people, the way the American businesses will work. But, for example, when it comes to, let’s say the Paris Accord, when 194 nations have decided to move forward – I know it’s a powerful nation, I know it’s a large nation. But I don’t think we need to overstate or overhype one person’s individual fancy. Also, it’s a 4-year term; you never know what may happen. He may get re-elected for all you know if the economy does very well and the people feel he is given them the great dream, the American dream.

But I think irrespective when it comes to the challenges that the world is facing, be it terrorism, be it climate change, be it the economic disparities amongst people of the world. You have a set of people who are right up there and you have billions of people living in poverty. I think these are shared concerns of the whole world. These are concerns which are causing a lot of fracture in the world.

After all, all this migration, the refugee problem, the religious problems we are facing in large parts of… some parts of Europe, some parts of Asia, Africa. All of these can be handled when the collective wisdom of the whole world tackles these issues, forums like the World Economic Forum or platforms like this help the whole world engage and come up with a, I think a possible agenda on which we can all counter the negativity of one person’s backing out of WTO or backing out of Paris.

A: I think I am missing one point in this whole conversation. We are forgetting that the people are smart. People know what’s good for them. And when they go out, they do vote, there could be a smart set of people who may be misguided occasionally. But, by and large, my own sense is, and after 30-35 years of public life, I can clearly see that people know what’s good for them. They know what’s bad for them against which they are voting if it’s an anti-incumbency vote. And we in India, for example, have an election every 3 or 4 or 6 months, some state within the Union is getting its Assembly or its local body elections, the national election takes place every 5 years. Then there are very local body elections at the village level or at the small town level, and it gives people a chance to reiterate their thoughts, their demands and also in some sense to give a leg up to what’s happening in the country.

So, in that sense, I think in this whole conversation while it’s very easy for all of us to pontificate about what happened was right or wrong, we are forgetting that it’s the might of the people and the right of the people to choose what they want to do.

A: Well, I personally think people know best. We in India have a very diverse set of people living in different parts of the country – many of them media-dark areas. They don’t even get a newspaper, forget internet or television, many of them uneducated – large numbers of people who may have had very rudimentary education, may not be very well-versed with the ways of the world. But election after election, we have seen them take radical decisions and collective decisions, so we had a serious problem of an emergency imposed on the country – 1975-77, across the country people voted the government out, and the new government that came in when it didn’t deliver within two and a half years, they threw that government out and got the first government back in.

There were huge corruption scandals in the country. The people across the country uniformly fought against that and voted a new government in. So, I think people are wise, people understand what’s good for them. They are aspiring for a lot, aspiring for a better quality of life, and we should trust the voter’s judgment.

 

Ends.

..युक्त नहीं होगा जब तक हम पूर्वी भारत का विकास तेज़ गति से नहीं करेंगे तब तक इस देश का विकास नहीं हो सकता है| और मैं समझता हूँ जिस तेज़ गति से अब बिहार में केंद्र सरकार की योजनायें, राज्य सरकार की योजनायें सब मिलकर संयुक्त रूप से जैसे हमने पहले भी कहा था एक डबल इंजन के रूप में जिस प्रकार से कार्य कर रही है, मुझे पूरा विश्वास है बिहार में तेज़ गति से विकास भी होगा, बिहार की जनता को सुख-सुविधाओं में भी वृद्धि होगी और जो कई वर्षों का एक प्रकार से बैकलॉग है, जो कमियां रह गयी हैं उसको पूरा करने में हम सब प्रयत्नशील भी हैं और सफल भी पूरी तरीके से होंगे|

आपकी मातृभूमि से तो वीर कुंवर सिंह ने जन्म लिया था और मैं समझता हूँ कि बचपन से हम सबने वीर कुंवर सिंह जी की कहानियाँ सुनी हैं, उनकी वीरता, उनकी महान वीरता आखिर 1857 में जब पहली देश की लड़ाई, आज़ादी की लड़ाई लड़ी गयी उसमें जो उनका योगदान था और काफी उम्र होने के बावजूद, मुझे जो बताया गया शायद 80 वर्ष के थे तब उसके बावजूद जिस प्रकार से उन्होंने ब्रिटिश शासन के खिलाफ संघर्ष किया पहली आज़ादी की लड़ाई में यह हम सबके लिए बहुत प्रेरणा की बात है| साम्प्रदायिकता, सामाजिक समानता पूरे प्रदेश में आये, पूरे देश में आये, महिलाओं का सशक्तिकरण हो इसके लिए जो भरपूर कार्य कुंवर वीर सिंह जी ने किया था उसके लिए मैं उनको साधुवाद देता हूँ, उनका नमन करता हूँ|

और मैं समझता हूँ आरा के हर एक नागरिक को यह गर्व की बात है कि कुंवर वीर सिंह जैसे बहुत ही प्रेरणादायी इतिहास से जुड़े हुए आपके इलाके से जन्मे ऐसे वीर सिपाही आप सबको प्रेरणा देते हैं, आप सबको काम करने के लिए आगे का मार्ग दिखाते हैं|

मुझे लगता है, मेरे मन में था कि अगर यह स्टेशन ऐसे-ऐसे डेवेलॉप होता है आरा का तो जैसे मधुबनी में कुछ युवा-युवतियों ने पेंटिंग करके मधुबनी स्टेशन को सुन्दर बनाया मैं समझता हूँ वीर कुंवर सिंह जी की जो गाथाएं हैं, जो उनके इतिहास से जुड़ी हुई जो-जो उनकी सात कहानियाँ हैं उनको लेकर भी आरा स्टेशन पर हम एक बहुत अच्छा वहां पर प्रदर्शनी बना सकते हैं|

आरके सिंह जी ने अभी-अभी जो नया पद संभाला है, ऊर्जा और नवीकरणीय ऊर्जा के क्षेत्र का, मैं उनको बधाई दूंगा कि इतने कम समय में उन्होंने जिस प्रकार से ऊर्जा के क्षेत्र को अपने काबू में लिया, चंद ही दिनों में सौभाग्य जैसी इतनी महत्वपूर्ण और महत्वकांक्षी योजना जिसकी शायद प्रतीक्षा देश 70 वर्षों से कर रहा था ऐसी योजना उन्होंने देश के समक्ष रखी और बीड़ा उठाया कि 15-16 महीने के अन्दर ही वह पूरे देश में हर घर तक बिजली पहुंचाएंगे, मुफ्त में पहुंचाएंगे, जो मैं समझता हूँ इस देश के हर घर का सपना था|

जिस-जिस काम में सिंह साहब लगे हैं भारत के सम्मानीय गृह सचिव के रूप में जिस प्रकार से उन्होंने माओवादी ताकतों का सामना किया, जिस प्रकार से माओवाद के खिलाफ जंग लड़ी, जिस प्रकार से भारत की सुरक्षा में उन्होंने सफल प्रयास किये, मैं समझता हूँ इनके काम करने का जो ढंग है उसका हम सबको लाभ अब ऊर्जा क्षेत्र में भी मिलेगा|

मैंने तो कुछ उनके जो कमेंट्स अभी तक सुने हैं, मुझे लगता है जो कटिया बिजली लेने वाले लोग हैं उन सबको तो वैसे ही डर लगने लग गया होगा| और अब ईमानदारी से बिजली जब मुफ्त मिलेगी, कनेक्शन मुफ्त मिलेगा तो कटिया कनेक्शन की ज़रूरत ही कहाँ रह जाएगी| और मैं बधाई दूंगा सिंह साहब को कि उन्होंने सौभाग्य जैसी योजना के साथ इस देश के हर घर को, हर गरीब के घर को मुफ्त में बिजली का कनेक्शन देने का जो संकल्प लिया है मैं समझता हूँ हम सबके लिए गर्व की बात है, आरा के एक-एक नागरिक के लिए गर्व की बात है कि जो तेज़ गति से विकास आरा से शुरू होकर निकलेगा वह देश के कोने-कोने तक हर गरीब के घर में बिजली पहुंचाएगा|

दिल्ली और हावड़ा के बीच स्थित आरा स्टेशन को एक आदर्श स्टेशन बनाने का जो काम रेलवेज ने शुरू किया है मैं समझता हूँ इसमें पूरी तरीके से श्रेय सिंह साहब को जाता है, वह लगातार रेल मंत्रालय के साथ लगे रहे| और इतने महत्वपूर्ण स्टेशन जहाँ पर कई गाड़ियाँ भी रुकती हैं उसको इतने समय से जो सुधार नहीं किया गया यह भी एक तरीके से हम सबके लिए थोड़ी दुःख की बात रही है|

मुझे ख़ुशी है कि पूर्वी भारत के विकास की जो संकल्पना माननीय प्रधानमंत्री जी ने की है उसमें रेलवे का भी एक बहुत बड़ा योगदान माना जाता है, रेलवे के अलग-अलग प्रकल्प बिहार में तेज़ गति से लगें और बिहार का कोना-कोना रेलवे लाइनों से युक्त हो, हर कोने तक रेल जाये, हम बिहार को देश के हर कोने से भी जोडें और बिहार के हर कोने को भी देश के साथ जोडें, यह संकल्पना से बिहार में रेलवे के विकास का काम शुरू किया गया है|

आपको जानकार ख़ुशी होगी, आरा के बारे में थोड़ी जानकारियां बता दूं, लगभग 26.5 करोड़ रुपये सिर्फ आरा स्टेशन के सौंदर्यीकरण और नवीकरण के काम में करीब-करीब 26 करोड़ 60 लाख रुपये लगने वाले हैं जिसका टेंडर पिछले महीने 20 तारीख को, 20 दिसम्बर को फाइनालाइज़ कर लिया गया है| आज पूरे एक महीने बाद उस काम का शिलान्यास कर दिया गया है और मैं आपको विश्वास दिलाता हूँ कि इस वर्ष के अंत के पहले यह पूरे काम को पूरे रूप से हम ख़त्म करेंगे, नया प्लेटफार्म भी बनने जा रहा है जिसमें शेड लगेगा ऊपर, लोगों को गर्मी में, ठंड में तकलीफ नहीं हो, कवर्ड शेड से इस प्लेटफार्म में बैठने की सुविधाओं को भी बढ़ाया जाएगा स्टेनलेस स्टील की बेंचेस लगाकर| अच्छी एलईडी लाइट से इस पूरे स्टेशन को सजाया जायेगा, साथ ही साथ जो दक्षिणी क्षेत्र है उसके विकास और सुधार के लिए भी विशेष योजना बनाई गयी है आरा के दक्षिणी क्षेत्र के लिए|

जो सुविधाएं यात्रियों के लिए आवश्यक हैं, जो एमेनिटीज, जो सुविधाएं आवश्यक मानी जाती हैं जिसमें सुरक्षा भी बढ़े उन सुरक्षा के हिसाब से सुविधाओं को भी और मज़बूत बनाया जायेगा, स्टेशन बिल्डिंग को सुन्दर बनाकर एक अच्छी स्टेशन बिल्डिंग हो, नया टिकेट बुकिंग का काउंटर हो, मोटर साइकिल के लिए पार्किंग की पूरी सुविधा बनाई जाये बाहर जिससे व्यक्ति अपनी मोटर साइकिल सुरक्षित रख सके और जब शाम को, रात को अगले दिन आये तो अपनी मोटर साइकिल लेकर गाँव और घर तक जा सके| यह सब दक्षिणी क्षेत्र में सुधार करके इसको किया जायेगा|

इसी प्रकार से जो ऊपरी पुल है, फुट ओवरब्रिज, इसको भी एक्सटेंड करने की योजना है और एक कोचिंग कॉम्प्लेक्स बनाने की योजना तय की गयी है जिसमें मेंटेनेंस वगैरा किया जायेगा, ट्रेन का साफ़-सफाई करने का काम होगा| एक और सोचा है कि बाउंड्री वॉल बनाई जाये जिससे लोगों को हम एक प्रकार से फुट ओवरब्रिज की तरफ भेज सकें बजाये कि ट्रैक क्रॉस करते हुए अपनी जान को कोई खतरा लें| और साथ ही साथ पिट लाइन और सिक लाइन जो नीचे टेक्निकल चीज़ें होती हैं उसमें भी सुधार करने की योजना इस पूरे क्षेत्र, इस पूरे स्टेशन के सौंदर्यीकरण के साथ जुड़ी हुई है|

मैं समझता हूँ इस सबसे एक तो आरा स्टेशन में जो दक्षिण से आने वाले लोग हैं उनको बहुत बड़ी सुविधा हो जाएगी स्टेशन पर आने-जाने के लिए और एक बहुत बड़ी आबादी उस तरफ से आती है ऐसा हमें बताया गया| तो उन सबके लिए बहुत सुविधाजनक हो जायेगा| साथ ही साथ एक और प्लेटफार्म जब बन जायेगा तो जो ट्रेन आजके दिन एक प्लेटफार्म में कोई ट्रेन है, दूसरी आ नहीं सकती है, दोनों प्लेटफार्म होने से जो समय पर चलनी चाहिए ट्रेन उसकी भी सुविधा और अच्छी हो जाएगी, ट्रेन समय पर आना-जाना उसका हम सुनिश्चित कर पाएंगे| पंच्यूलिटी में, समय-सीमा में ट्रेन चलने में सुधार का मुझे पूरा विश्वास है, इस नए प्लेटफार्म से उसमें भी सुधार होगा| साथ ही साथ बेहतर स्वच्छता हो, उसके लिए पूरे टॉयलेट्स को ठीक तरीके से बनाया जायेगा, महिलाओं के लिए शौचालय अलग, पुरुषों के लिए अलग, और अगर आप सब उचित समझें तो उसके देख-रेख के लिए किसी आदमी को रखकर छोटा-मोटा एक-दो रुपये ले लें लेकिन उस पैसे से शौचालय को साफ़-सुन्दर बनाकर रखें जिससे कभी किसी को ट्रेन में जाकर, जिस प्रकार से हमने कौनसी पिक्चर में वह देखा था? टॉयलेट: एक प्रेम कथा? देखी है कि नहीं आपने?

वह ‘टॉयलेट: एक प्रेम कथा’ में गाँव वालों को ट्रेन के अन्दर शौचालय करने जाना पड़ता था तो हम तो चाहेंगे कि हर एक के घर में शौचालय बने, हर गाँव में सुविधा हो लेकिन अगर कोई यात्री को स्टेशन पर जाना पड़े तो ट्रेन का इंतिज़ार न करे, अच्छी शौच की सुविधाएं स्टेशन पर उपलब्ध हो, साफ़-सुथरा पानी हो, सब प्रकार से यात्रियों को सुविधाजनक शौचालय की सुविधा हो तो मैं समझता हूँ स्वच्छता रखने में बहुत बड़ा उसका योगदान रहेगा|

एक बहुत बड़ा लाभ यह होगा इस स्टेशन में कोचिंग और सेकंड प्लेटफार्म बनाने से और कोचिंग फैसिलिटीज़ कि आरा के नागरिकों को हर बार पटना नहीं जाना पड़ेगा, उसके बदले आरा से ही सीधा अपने अंतिम डेस्टिनेशन तक, अपनी अंतिम यात्रा तक वह आरा से ही शुरू कर सकेंगे, यह एक बहुत बड़ा लाभ मैं समझता हूँ इस कार्यक्रम, इस काम से आरा में रेलवे की तरफ से यह काम किया जायेगा|

अलग-अलग बिहार में विकास के काम हो, बिहार तेज़ गति से देश के साथ जुड़े, देश की विकास यात्रा के साथ जुड़े उसके लिए मोदी सरकार और सिंह साहब और मैं, व्यक्तिगत रूप में, हम सब पूरी तरीके से प्रतिबद्ध है| हमारा उद्देश्य है, सिंह साहब का उद्देश्य है कि देश रोशनी से भरपूर उज्ज्वल हो जाये और मेरा उद्देश्य है कि पूरे देश को हम जोड़ सकें रेल की पटरियों द्वारा| और मैं समझता हूँ हम दोनों का उद्देश्य एक प्रकार से जुड़ा हुआ है|

जैसे-जैसे तेज़ गति से बिजली हर कोने-कोने तक पहुंचेगी, वैसे-वैसे हमारे लिए भी सुविधा बनेगी कि रेल का काम भी देश भर में पहुंचा सके| और सिंह साहब के मार्गदर्शन से, सिंह साहब के सहयोग से मुझे आपको बताते हुए ख़ुशी होती है कि अब रेलवे ने तय किया है कि पूरे देश में जितनी रेल गाड़ियाँ चलती हैं और जितना रेलवे नेटवर्क है, पूरे को विद्युतीकरण किया जाये, बिजली से चलाई जाये ट्रेन| इससे जो धुँआ निकलता है ट्रेन से, डीजल की ट्रेन से जो हम सबके स्वास्थ्य के लिए हानिकारक है, यह हम पूरे रूप से इसको ख़त्म करना चाहते हैं|

और मैं समझता हूँ दुनिया की, पूरी दुनिया की पहली रेलवे होगी भारतीय रेल, प्रधानमंत्री मोदी जी के नेतृत्व में इतना बड़ा काम करने जा रही है कि दुनिया की पहली शत-प्रतिशत विद्युतीकरण की गयी रेलवे भारत की होगी|

और जिस प्रकार से माननीय आरके सिंह साहब नवीकरणीय ऊर्जा को एक तेज़ गति से देश में बढ़ावा दे रहे हैं, रेलवे ने भी अपनी तरफ से यह तय किया है कि हम भी देश भर में सौर ऊर्जा को लगायें, स्टेशन के ऊपर सौर ऊर्जा के पैनल्स लगायें, अलग-अलग जगहों पर सौर ऊर्जा से कैसे देश में एक जलवायु परिवर्तन से जो समस्याएं आती हैं जो आजकल हम देश भर में देखते हैं कभी बहुत सर्दी हुई तो बड़ी सर्दी हो गयी, गर्मी हुई तो कुछ ज्यादा ही गर्मी हो गयी, बारिश आ रही है तो बाढ़ पड़ रही है, सूखा हो रहा है तो कोई बारिश का नामोनिशान नहीं|

यह जो सब समस्याएं हैं इसकी जो जड़ है जलवायु परिवर्तन, उसको अगर हमें ठीक करना है तो जो सिंह साहब नवीकरणीय ऊर्जा को प्रोत्साहन दे रहे हैं, जैसे हम डीजल के बदले इलेक्ट्रिसिटी, बिजली से चलनी वाली ट्रेन, रेल गाड़ियाँ बना रहे हैं, यह सब संयुक्त प्रयास है मोदी सरकार का कि भारत की जनता को फिर एक बार साफ़-सुथरा जल मिले, साफ़-सुथरा आसमान मिले, अच्छे रहने के लिए एक अच्छा माहौल मिले और इस काम में आपका सहयोग आपका आशीर्वाद अगर मिलता रहेगा तो मुझे पूरा विश्वास है कि अगली पीढ़ी कभी यह नहीं कहेगी कि हमने इस देश को अच्छी तरीके से संवारा नहीं, अच्छी तरीके से उनको सौगात में नहीं दिया|

यह हम सबकी संयुक्त ज़िम्मेदारी है, आपकी भी मेरी भी, मंत्रियों की नहीं, देश के नागरिकों की कि हम इस देश को अच्छा रखें, साफ़-सुथरा रखें इस देश को ऐसा बनाकर छोडें कि अगली पीढ़ी हमें धन्यवाद दे बजाये कि हमारे ऊपर नाराज़ हो या हमें गाली दे| क्या यह ज़िम्मेदारी हम सब साथ में मिलकर पूरी करेंगे? आरा का हर एक नागरिक इसमें साथ में जुड़ेगा?

बहुत-बहुत धन्यवाद, बहुत अच्छा लगा आप सबको मिलकर, आप सबसे विचार-विमर्श करके और बहुत-बहुत शुभकामनाएं आपकी इस नयी योजना के लिए|