Urbanising India needs to work in right direction: PM

Mumbai: Carrying out bhoomipujan for the first phase of Pune Metro, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said India is urbanising at a very quick pace and thus it is essential to work in the correct direction. Pune is a city of learning and it should take the lead in embracing online banking and exploring the facilities available, he said.

Mr Modi was sharing the dais with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and Cabinet ministers Dilip Patole and Girish Bapat. “We must plan for the future. Everything cannot be seen from a political point of view. We must plan adequately for growth of our cities,” he said. Asked the people present at the event to show their mobile phone lights in order to show their ayes or likes for his questions, the PM said the government is actively working on the urban mission and this will aid those places that are growing and urbanising quickly.  

Pune Metro has been in the pipeline for many years and had become the topic of controversy after Congress leader Prthiviraj Chavan carried out the bhoomipujan of the Pune Metro on Friday itself, a day before Mr Modi was scheduled to visit Pune.

Union minister for transport and shipping, Nitin Gadkari, and Union minister for railways Suresh Prabhu claimed that all these projects had been pending for the last 15 years of the Congress-NCP rule in Maharashtra. Mr Gadkari also announced road projects worth Rs 3 trillion in Maharashtra in a span of five years. Mr Fadnavis said his government had taken up a massive expansion of the Metro rail network.