During the COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdown, people were getting money into their bank accounts just by pushing a button, she said. “If they couldn’t get to the bank or didn’t know how to get it, Mitra Bank would come to the village and deliver their money,” she said.
During the same period, some “advanced economies” wrote checks (for aid), put them in an envelope and mailed them to people, she noted. Several doubts have been cast on how e-payments will work, especially in rural areas where internet connectivity is spotty, but now “despite COVID, India is leading the world in UPI payments,” the minister said finances.
It was Modi’s approach to governance that starts with ‘trusting our people, trusting our industry, trusting our women and trusting our families’ that made the difference, Sitharaman said. . A few years ago, a UPA minister said that it was impossible to popularize electronic payments because “how could one pay 7 rupees to a vegetable seller electronically”, she said. That doubt is now dispelled, she added.
When the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance was in power, a new corruption scam appeared every day, but in the past eight years no one has even ‘carelessly’ accused the Modi government of corruption, the leader says of the BJP. Sitharaman also explained how the profile of Padma award winners has changed under the Modi government.
“We don’t know of any. They’re picked from the backcountry, from the corners of the country. They’re great performers themselves but we haven’t had time to recognize them. We didn’t know how. locate them.” locate each of them,” she added.
“Delivery is history,” the finance minister said, adding that there had been slogans like “Garibi Hatao” and promises to deliver things like clean water in the past. “But all of this is being fulfilled now, because here is a man (Modi) who is dedicated to the country,” she added.
