New Delhi, Feb 10: Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has highlighted that government investment in the development of infrastructure such as highways, railways and ports has surged to Rs 11 lakh crore in the last one year under the Modi government compared to a mere Rs 2 lakh crore a year during the erstwhile UPA regime.

Explaining the rationale of the budget, the Communications Minister told journalists that Prime Minister Narendra Modi considers the poor, farmers, women and youth as the only four castes in India and the Budget for 2025-26 focusses on empowering these four categories.

The minister said that national highways had been constructed across 6,000 km while new railway lines had been laid over 2,031 km in the last one year.

Besides, in the telecom sector, towers have been installed in 10,700 villages to provide connectivity to rural areas.

Highlighting that India has emerged as the fastest growing economy, Scindia said while the global growth rate is stuck at 3.2 per cent, India has registered a 6.5 per cent GDP growth.

The country’s agriculture sector has recorded a 3.5 per cent growth rate, he added.

"Our aim is that India becomes the third-largest economy by 2027 overtaking Germany and Japan in the next two years. The target is that India will be a $5 trillion economy by 2028 and $6 trillion by 2030,” the minister said.

Scindia further stated that the banking sector was reeling under a huge burden of non-performing assets (NPA) of 11.5 per cent of total loans in 2014 which was a legacy of the erstwhile UPA government.

The Modi government has restored the banking system to robust health with the NPAs coming down to 2.6 per cent which has helped to expand credit and fuel growth in the economy, he added.

Underscoring the inclusive development that was taking place in the country, Scindia said the Indian Postal Department, with its 1.64 lakh post offices and four lakh postmen, will be converted into logistics centres.

These would provide services like parcels and e-commerce nationwide to cover the rural areas.

Besides, 2.12 lakh gram panchayats in the country have been connected through BharatNet and the network was being expanded to provide broadband connectivity to all village panchayats in the country, the minister added.

--IANS

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