NEW DELHI, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday laid stress on his government's vision of "New India by 2022."
Under this larger policy initiative, the Centre attempts to doubling the farmers' income, development of aspirational districts, taking up "Ayushman Bharat" Mission (or National Health Mission), "Mission Indradhanush" (or Child Health Mission), Nutrition Mission, and celebrations of the 150th birth anniversary of father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi beginning Oct. 2 this year.
Addressing the fourth meeting of the governing council of the government's ace thinktank - the National Institution for Transforming India, or NITI Aayog, the prime minister said that under the "Ayushman Bharat" policy initiative, around 150,000 Health and Wellness Centers are being constructed and about 100 million families will be provided health insurance worth 7,700 U.S. dollars every year.
The day-long crucial meeting was held in New Delhi, and was attended by union ministers, chief ministers of states and senior government officials.
Under the central government's programme of development of aspirational districts, as many as 115 most backward districts have been chosen across the length and breadth of the country, with the objective of transforming these districts by raising the overall living standard of the people.
As many as 49 key performance indicators have been chosen to measure progress of the districts. A dashboard has been created for monitoring the real-time progress of the districts, and district information officers have been trained on how to enter data to the dashboard and generate live data. The chosen districts started entering data with effect from April 1.
In his opening remarks, Modi said that a comprehensive approach is being adopted for education, under the "Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan."
Schemes such as "Mudra Yojana" (or Loan scheme), "Jan Dhan Yojana" (Cash for Public scheme) and "Stand Up India" to develop entrepreneurial skills among women and lower castes people, are helping in greater financial inclusion of various sections of the Indian society.
The prime minister said the Indian economy had grown at a healthy rate of 7.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017-18.
"The challenge now is to take this growth rate to double digits, for which many more important steps have to be taken," added the prime minister.