The Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated the new 4-lane Thaltej-Shilaj-Rancharda railway overbridge, built at a cost of Rs 55 crore, in Ahmedabad city of Gujarat through video conferencing from New Delhi today. Several dignitaries including Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Shri Nitin Patel were present at the programme.In his address on the occasion, Shri Amit Shah said after becoming Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has started a campaign to address the problems faced in the country in basic utilities. There was a big problem of traffic on more than one lakh railway crossings in the country. Railway gates would open and close more than a 100 times a day, due to which the costly fuel and precious time was wasted. In view of this, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi decided and under the leadership of Railway Minister Shri Piyush Goyal, a huge campaign was started in which the work of constructing overbridges or underbridges at these one lakh railway crossings was started. Today, this overbridge has been inaugurated under the same scheme. Shri Shah said that I want to congratulate all the voters of Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, that today the Government of India and the Government of Gujarat have done the work to overcome a huge bottleneck on the path of development.The Union Home Minister said the Railways are working to eliminate all unmanned gates, under which by 2022 there will be almost no unmanned gates in the country, which will reduce accidents. Giving comparative figures of the newly constructed overbridges, Shri Amit Shah said that from 2009 to 2014, about 900 unmanned crossings had been completed while from 2014 to 2020, about 3,584 unmanned crossings were covered. About 3.5 times more work has been done and till now more than 8,900 overbridges and underbridges have been almost completed.
Shri Amit Shah said that even after 70 years of Independence, there were more than 20,000 villages which did not have electric supply; within two years, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi completed the task of providing electricity to all villages in India by 2017. There were 60 crore people who did not have a single bank account in their family. Today I can say with pride that the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi has done the task of providing at least one bank account to all families. A population of about 30 crore and more than 10 crore families had a housing problem. Today, with the kind of housing project work that is going on in rural and urban areas, I can say with full confidence that by 15th August 2022, the Government of Shri Narendra Modi can arrange to give houses to all the citizens of the country. The Union Home Minister said that if somebody fell sick in a poor family, how to afford expensive treatment is a big problem. But by bringing Ayushman Bharat scheme, Prime Minister Shri Modi ensured for all 60 crore poor people to get all health services up to Rs. 5 lakh for free.The Union Home Minister said Gujarat has received the biggest benefit of all the schemes of the Government of India. The root cause of this is the method of fast decision making and the implementation i.e. rapid working system. Many types of infrastructure works have been done in Gujarat in a beautiful way. Recently, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi started work of Surat Metro and Ahmedabad Metro Phase-2. Many other works such as the BRTS project are also going on wonderfully in Ahmedabad. Be it drinking water facilities, connecting roads to ports, connecting pilgrimage sites with roads, providing 24-hour power and providing electricity to farmers during the day, the Gujarat Government has done a very excellent job in all areas. As a result of this, the Modi Government has completed all infrastructure works in six years as much was done in this sector during the 20 years prior to that.Shri Amit Shah said that due to Corona, the growth of the world economy including India slowed down, but the India’s economy is poised to take off at a fast pace, which has become a topic of discussion all over the world. According to the latest data, last month’s electricity consumption, which is considered to be a very important index for the development of the economy, reached an all-time high. This means that our economy has bounced back. The largest vaccination programme in the world has also been started by Shri Narendra Modi. It is also going on smoothly in Gujarat. Shri Shah said he is confident that with the completion of this vaccination process, we will be able to accelerate the progress of the country by achieving complete victory over the Covid pandemic.