Trust saw rise in taxpayers: PM

Bhopal: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday described the pre-2014 period as an “era of scams and corruptions” and said that people were robbed of their rights and their money, but now every penny is directly reaching their bank accounts.

Addressing the Madhya Pradesh Rozgar Mela virtually from Delhi, he said that one of the key gains of plugging the “leakage in the system” is that the government is now capable of spending more for the welfare of the poor than before.

The investments made on a huge scale in the welfare programmes have also generated employment in every nook and corner of the country.

Driving his point home, he cited the example of common service centres (CCCs), established in villages in the country.

Around five lakh new CCCs have been set up in the villages in the country since 2014, which not only created jobs for the people but also ensured welfare of the villages and the poor, he said.

“When decisions are made with a positive mindset, right intention and full devotion then the whole environment is filled with positivity,” Modi observed.

He noted the marked improvement in the poverty scenario in the country, saying that 13.5 crore people in India have moved above the poverty line in the last five years, as per the Niti Aayog report.

Besides, the average income of the people has increased manifolds in the last nine years, he added.

According to the ITR data, the average income, which was around Rs 4 lakh in 2014, has increased to Rs 13 lakh in 2023.

Besides, the number of people from lower income group to upper income group has also increased.

The PM said that the growth of public trust in the government has led to a surge in the number of taxpayers in the country.

Modi said that the new figures of income-tax returns have suggested that the trust of people in their government is becoming stronger.

“As a result, the citizens of the country are coming forward in large numbers to pay their taxes honestly. It is clearly visible to them that the economy, which ranked 10th in the world before 2014, has reached fifth position today,” Modi said.

The PM’s statement comes in the wake of disclosure from the official data that the total number of income-tax returns (ITRs) for AY 2023-24 filed till July 31 is more than 6.77 crore, which is 16.1 per cent  more than the total ITRs for AY 2022-23 (5.83 crore) filed till July 31, 2022.

 Referring to the National Education Policy (NEP), Modi said that NEP is making a huge contribution in leading India to becoming a developed country.

The NEP has laid emphasis on both traditional knowledge as well as state-of-the-art technology. A new curriculum has been chalked out for primary education under the policy.

The most significant feature of the policy is to impart education in the mother tongue, which has done away with the social injustice as students who do not know English have so far been not allowed education in their mother tongue.

Education in regional languages, as devised in the NEP, would be the basis of massive reform in the education system in the country, he said.

Around 5,500 teachers of government primary schools in Madhya Pradesh were given appointment letters on the occasion.