JOIN USCOVID-19 crisis brings home for nation importance of being self-reliant, says Prime Minister Modi
The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic brought home for the entire nation, the importance of being fully self-reliant, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday, even as he called upon the rural population to strictly adhere to the mantra of “Do Gaj Doori” (Two Yards Apart) to keep the virus away.
“The biggest lesson that the COVID-19 crisis and the fight against it have taught us is that we must be absolutely self-reliant,” Modi said while interacting with some Gram Panchayat chiefs during a video-conference on the occasion of the National Panchayati Raj Day. He said that the national endeavor to be self-reliant should start from the villages. “Each village must be self-reliant for the basic needs of its people. Likewise, each district and each state must be self-reliant at the respective levels to finally make the nation absolutely self-reliant. It is something that has become very important.”
The Prime Minister launched a unified e-GramSwaraj Portal, which will provide the Gram Panchayats with a single interface to prepare and implement their Gram Panchayat Development Plan. He also launched the “Swamitva Scheme”, which provides for an integrated property validation solution for villages with drones being used for demarcation of inhabited land in rural areas.
The Ministry of Panchayati Raj celebrates April 24 as the National Panchayati Raj to commemorate enforcement of the 73rd amendment of the Constitution decentralizing powers on this day in 1993.
The lockdown imposed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, however, prompted the ministry to drop its plan to hold a national event at Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh and to scale it down to a video-conference with Prime Minister interacting with some Gram Panchayat chiefs in Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Assam.
Modi used the opportunity to take stock of the fight against the COVID-19 and implementation of the lockdown in the villages across the country.
He said that it was for strict adherence to the simple mantra of “Do Gaj Doori” in the villages across the country that the country’s response to the COVID-19 was being lauded around the world. “This pandemic is a huge challenge. But we have also seen in the past two-three months that people of the country were not giving in to it and rather facing it, taking on it, notwithstanding resource constraint,” said the Prime Minister.
He also said that the practice of social distancing and hand hygiene as well as the use of face masks would continue to be the most effective tool for people to fight against the COVID-19 in the coming days. He stressed on sanitization works in the villages, as well as on making arrangements for quarantining people traveling from the cities to the villages and for ensuring food and other essentials for all. “Irresponsible behavior by one person could put the entire village in peril. There is no scope for laxity or relaxation.”
“A unique feature of the COVID-19 is that it does not go to the house of anyone uninvited,” the Prime Minister said in a lighter vein. “It will go to your house only if you go out and invite it. And, once it is in your house, it will not spare anyone.”
Naveen Kumar, a 'sarpanch' in Chikballapur, Karnataka, briefed the Prime Minister about the arrangements made in his village for quarantining 14 people suspected of being COVID-19 positive as well as for accommodation for nearly 170 stranded migrant workers from Maharashtra. He also told Modi that social distancing norms were being strictly followed in the fruits and vegetable market set up in the village as well as in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
Pallavi, another 'sarpanch' from Pathankot in Punjab, told the Prime Minister about the social distancing norms being implemented by the farmers of her village while working in the fields.
Modi said that it was important to protect the farmers from the COVID-19 infections as they were ensuring the food security of the nation during the crisis.