Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday asserted that the government will go to every village of the country in mission mode and make every poor and deprived person a beneficiary of its schemes.

He was speaking after launching the ‘Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra’ and the ‘PM Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan’ in Jharkhand.

Addressing a programme marking the celebrations of Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas, 2023 at Khunti in the state, he said the degree of development in India depended on capability to strengthen the four pillars of ‘Amrit Kaal’– women power, youth power, agricultural power and power of the poor and middle class.

”Modi has made the deprived his priority. I have come to this land of Bhagwan Birsa Munda to repay the debt that I owe to the deprived. True secularism comes only when all possibilities of discrimination against any citizen of the country are eliminated,” he said.

During the programme, Modi also released the 15th installment of PM-KISAN amounting to about Rs 18,000 crore and laid foundation stones of multiple development projects worth Rs 7,200 crore in Jharkhand.

Dwelling on his personal connection with Jharkhand, he recalled that the Ayushman Yojana was started from the state.  He highlighted the government’s momentous achievement in uplifting more than 13 crore people out of poverty.

“Our seva kaal began when our government came to power in 2014,” he said while claiming that a large population of the country was earlier deprived of basic amenities.

He said the poor had lost all hope due to the ”careless approach” of the previous governments. “The present government began work with a spirit of service,” he remarked and said the poor and the deprived became the top priority of the government which delivered the amenities at their doorstep.

He credited the approach of the government for this transformation.

Before 2014, the prime minister informed that the scope of cleanliness in villages was merely 40 per cent whereas today, the nation was aiming for saturation.

Modi said the government has resisted the temptation of going for the low-hanging fruits and attended to long pending issues. He gave the example of the electrification of 18,000 villages which were cursed to live in the dark ages.

He also expressed gratitude towards President Droupadi Murmu for her steadfast commitment to the development of the tribal communities. He called her an inspiring symbol of women-led development.

He narrated the measures taken to ensure women-led development in recent years. “Our government made schemes for women, keeping in mind every stage of their lives,” he added.

Speaking about the 15th installment of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi which was released on Wednesday, the prime minister informed that more than Rs 2,75,000 crore have now been transferred to the accounts of farmers so far.

He credited the overall development of Jharkhand for the reduction in Naxalite violence in the state.