
VISAKHAPATNAM: Building trust among people is crucial for good governance, Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman said here on Friday.Delivering the NTR memorial lecture on ‘Empowerment - Road to Good Governance’, marking the birth centenary of former chief minister NT Rama Rao at GITAM (Deemed to be University), she said, “Today, the way we have adopted technology is ensuring that benefits reach common public, one of the goals of good governance has been achieved. Good governance is about looking for instruments with which you are able to implement the objectives,” she said.
Invoking the message of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’, the Finance Minister also said there should be adequate presence of a government where required, and no more.She said the Centre is implementing ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas Sabka Vishwas’ to make people of the country self-reliant. She said the Narendra Modi government is involving every section of people in development. She said the government extended compensation to the family members of those who died due to Covid-19, under the Atal Bima Yojana. Similarly, they could extend financial assistance to those who are in need.
She said 1,500 redundant Acts were scrapped so that the Acts cannot be misused for harassing people. “Through good governance, the Centre is striving to better the living of the people,” she asserted.She said people should ponder over freebies, included in manifestoes of parties and they should think whether the government either in the State or at the Centre has resources to fund the schemes or plans to go for borrowings for freebies. She felt that it is not correct to say interest is being paid for money borrowed to implement freebies. The Centre is spending every rupee of the taxpayer’s money for the benefit of people, she averred.
Lok Satta founder president Jayaparakash Narayan said former CM NTR implemented welfare schemes while keeping an eye on long term benefits. However, welfare schemes are now being implemented by governments with an eye on votes, he rued. “Ill-conceived schemes are hardly helping development of people and most of them are aimed at making them as mere vote banks,” he deplored. The entire borrowed money should only be spent on development programmes. The government should strike a balance between welfare and development, he stressed.
In her welcome address, former Union minister Daggubati Purandeswari said NTR was an open book and every detail of his life is known to everyone. However, their family decided to hold every month a meeting as part of his birth centenary celebrations throughout the year, she said.Indian School of Business Dean Madan Pillutla, GITAM president M Sribharat and Symbiosis CEO O Naresh Kumar also spoke.