'Forget The Past, Focus On The Future': PM Modi Urges Ministers To Accelerate Reforms For Viksit Bharat 2047

New Delhi: PM Narendra Modi has given a strong message to his ministers:” Forget the past. Focus on the future.” He urged his council of ministers to accelerate work for making India a developed nation by 2047.

During the marathon over four-hour-long meeting with his Council of Ministers on Thursday evening, Modi called upon his ministers to focus on future reforms for achieving the goal of creating “Viksit Bharat 2047”. He said the creation of a developed India was not a slogan but a firm commitment.

The PM, who convened the meeting soon after his return from a five-nation tour, stressed on improving governance and administrative efficiency. He spoke of the need to expedite decision-making, cut bureaucratic delays, prompt clearance of pending work quickly, simplifying rules and processes, reducing compliance burdens, and improving ease of living and ease of doing business.

Modi also urged the ministers to focus on the work at hand and avoid getting embroiled in unnecessary controversies. The meeting also saw around nine ministries -- Agriculture, Environment/Forests, Commerce, Power, External Affairs, Road Transport, Labour and Corporate Affairs -- make presentations in which they provided updates on their schemes, their recent decisions and outcomes, and future plans. The presentations were made in the presence of senior ministers including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

With the West Asia conflict and geopolitical tensions impacting trade and energy security, the meeting also discussed at length the impact of the conflict in general and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in particular, since a large percentage of India natural gas and oil imports used to come through here.

The meeting noted with concern that due to the shortage of oil and gas the prices of these commodities in the international market have increased sharply with crude trading in the $100- 110 range. Apart from this, the delay in a solution to the Strait of Hormuz is also causing uncertainty and is keeping oil and gas prices elevated.

India, the meeting was told, has taken several contingency measures to ensure continuous supply of oil, gas and fertilizers for its people in general and also its petroleum, power, agriculture and logistics sectors.

Modi also posted about the meeting on "X", where he wrote, " Had a fruitful meeting of the Council of Ministers yesterday. We exchanged perspectives and best practices relating to boosting ‘Ease of Living, ‘Ease of Doing Business’ and how to further reforms in order to realise our shared dream of a Viksit Bharat."