New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday dangled the carrot of grant to the states, equal to 75% of subsidy saved by reducing the kerosene consumption.
He told a meeting of the 11th inter-state council that the Karnataka government became the first state to grab the scheme just announced by the petroleum ministry and secured the grant.
“If all states decide to reduce kerosene consumption by 25%, and actually do so, they can receive about Rs 1600 crore as grant this year,” Modi said, pointing out various steps of his government to cut down use of kerosene to save large amount of subsidy, including the plan to provide 5 crore new cooking gas connections over the next three years.
Noting three major issues flagged for discussion in the inter-state council meeting after a gap of ten years, Modi laid stress on adopting Aadhaar in a big way, particularly after the Aadhaar Act enacted to use it for direct cash transfers, subsidy and other services.
Modi said 102 crore Aadhaar cards have been already distributed in the country of 128 crore people, which means 79% population have the Aadhaar numbers. However, it is 96% if the adults are counted, he said, setting the target of covering every citizen in the country with the Aadhaar card by December.
He hailed Aadhaar card as a symbol of empowerment as the benefits now flow only to the people genuinely entitled and that too directly into their bank accounts. This not only brought transparency but resulted in savings of thousands of crores to be utilised in development, Modi said.
The second issue flagged for the meeting was education. Modi laid stress on improving the standard of education and suggested that the youth should be equipped with at least some skills required in the economy of the 21st century.
The third issue on which Modi elaborated was the internal security challenges on the agenda.
