'Very focused on delivery': Canada PM Mark Carney shares his assessment of PM Modi & his reforms

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is "very focused" on delivery of welfare programmes to the common people and has been successful in bringing "hundreds of millions" of them into the formal economy through "financial reforms" in India.

During an interaction at the Lowy Institute, Australia's leading think tank, Carney shared his assessment of PM Modi days after their meeting when he was in New Delhi from February 27 to March 2.

"Just on a personal level the impressions which is, he is a person who is very... and I have known this from before, but it is interesting just the interaction over time... very focused on delivery to, I would say, the rural household," Carney replied.

"So a huge motivation for the financial reform transformations, the payment system transformation, the UPI and other things... was to get money directly to individuals without leakage... shall we say, in the system in real time, and to bring people, hundreds of millions of people, into the formal economy," Carney said.

"He is very focused on that aspect of delivery. So here he is... up at this global level operating, India rising much, I mean challenges, but much much positive, but a leader who keeps bringing it back down to that level," he added.

Carney also seem surprised at the fact that PM Modi has not taken a day off in the last 25 years ever since he first became Gujarat's Chief Minister in 2001 and then India's Prime Minister in 2014. He said every weekend PM Modi is out "campaigning" where "2,50,000 people attend his rallies."

During Carney's visit, India and Canada signed key pacts on supplies of Uranium and critical minerals and agreed to conclude a comprehensive economic partnership agreement soon.