India to spend Rs 100L Crore on 7K infra projects

Aimed at eliminating silos, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday announced that India will spend Rs 100 lakh crore on 7,000 National Infrastructure projects.

For this, the Prime Minister said, a very big plan has been prepared to connect the entire country with Multi-Modal Connectivity.

"About 7,000 projects of different sectors have also been identified. It would be like a new revolution in infrastructure. The country is moving towards spending more than Rs 100 lakh crore on this project," Modi said during his speech from the Red Fort on the 74th Independence Day.

Mentioning the need to eliminate silos in the era of infrastructure, Modi said there is a need to give a new direction to the overall infrastructure so that India moves towards modernity at a fast pace.

"This need will be met with the National Infrastructure Pipeline Project." He said many big companies of the world are turning to India presently and that "we have to move forward with the mantra of Make in India as well as Make for World".

At the event, the Prime Minister also announced that a new national cyber security strategy has been drafted in the country. He said India is alert, cautious and is taking decisions to counter these threats and is constantly developing new systems.

Modi further announced that every village in the country will be connected with optical fibre in the coming 1,000 days and that the goal will be met.

Informing that only five dozen panchayats in the country were connected with optical fibre before 2014, Modi said 1.5 lakh gram panchayats in the country have since been connected with optical fibre in the last few years.

He said Lakshadweep will also be connected to submarine optical fibre cable.

To give modern infrastructure to the farmers of the country, he said, an Agriculture Infrastructure Fund of Rs 1 lakh crore has been created.

The Prime Minister stressed on border and coastal infrastructure mentioning its big role in the security of the country, saying "be it the Himalayan peaks or the islands of the Indian Ocean, today there is an unprecedented expansion of road and internet connectivity in the country, expanding rapidly".

"There are more than 1,300 islands in our country. In view of their geographical location, considering their importance in the development of the country, work is underway to start new development schemes in some of these selected islands," he said.

He mentioned a special campaign was also being worked on with a holistic approach to reduce pollution in 100 selected cities of the country.

The Prime Minister also announced that another big campaign, National Digital Health Mission, is going to be launched in the country from Saturday to bring a new revolution in India's health sector.