New Delhi : Prime Minister Modi on Friday said incremental progress is not enough to meet challenges and hence “my vision for India is rapid transformation, not gradual evolution.”
He made it clear that India’s transformation cannot happen without a transformation of governance, a transformation of governance cannot happen without a transformation in mindset, and a transformation of mindset cannot happen without transformative ideas.
Modi was speaking at a “Transformation India” lecture organised by NITI (National Institution for Transforming India), in which the key speaker was Singapore deputy prime minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam and the participants included union ministers, chief ministers and senior bureaucrats.
He said: “We have to change laws, eliminate unnecessary procedures, speed up processes and adopt technology as cannot march through the twenty first century with the administrative systems of the nineteenth century.”
Modi pointed out that ever since taking over as the PM he has personally participated in structured brainstorming sessions with bankers, with police officers and with Secretaries to Government, among others, and ideas coming from these sessions are incorporated into policy.
“These efforts have been to tap ideas from inside. The next step is to bring in ideas from outside,” he said while explaining the purpose of the “Transformation India” lecture series.
Noting that one of the greatest reformers and administrators was Lee Kuan Yew, who transformed Singapore to what it is today, and therefore he decided to invite the Singapore deputy PM to inaugurate the series, hailing him as one of the world’s leading intellectuals.
