Amit Shah: Good governance should build trust between govt, people

Union Minister for Home and Cooperation Amit Shah, Indian Express Chairman Viveck Goenka, Executive Director Anant Goenka and the Governance awards recipients at the award ceremony in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Express Photo)

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi believes that the key to good governance is a people-centric development policy. A policy for good governance cannot be imported. We will have to make our own models according to our situation and after evaluating the condition of the people. If we try to impose an imported model from a country with a population of 2-10 crore onto a nation as diverse as ours, we are bound to fail. And for this, the thought process must start at the grassroots level and reach the top. And the top must be so open that it must take the smallest of suggestions seriously,” he said.

Amit Shah handed over awards for innovative and good governance to 18 District Magistrates at The Indian Express Excellence in Governance Awards in the national capital. (Express Photo)

While congratulating the District Magistrates who won the awards, Shah cautioned that the recognition must not make them complacent. “Consider it a motivation to surge ahead. A dream that does not make you lose your sleep is not a dream. So dream about things that don’t let you sleep for years. Dreams that do not have you, but others. The satisfaction that you will get by dreaming for others and for the nation is not something you will get even after becoming Cabinet Secretary,” he said.

Speaking on the occasion, Viveck Goenka, Chairman and Managing Director of The Indian Express Group, said the awards are “a powerful reminder that in a democracy, the best of public service does not need to be contested”.

In his speech, Shah said good governance is the “key to development and progress”. “In a democracy, it is impossible to take the essence of the Constitution to the grassroots level. The Indian Constitution, which imagines equal opportunity and equal progress for all, can become successful only when good governance is adopted at the district magistrate level,” he said.

Referring to the concept and idea behind the awards, Shah said, “Since Ramnath Goenka’s time and even during the British Raj, The Indian Express has been known for its anti-establishment journalism. It is good to expose the wrongs or shortcomings of the government. But giving recognition to good work will inspire society and encourage those who are doing good work.”

While congratulating the District Magistrates who won the awards, Shah cautioned that the recognition must not make them complacent. (Express Photo)

Invoking the courage shown by Ramnath Goenka and The Indian Express during the Emergency in 1975, Shah said, “The first ever attempt to keep business and journalism away from each other was made by Goenka-ji. And so he will always be remembered. He never hesitated in exposing what was not in the interests of the country and did this without any fear, ideological bias and bitterness… Be it the freedom movement or the Emergency — whenever there was an opportunity to do anything for the country, Ramnath Goenkaji worked with fearlessness and with an India-first agenda.”

During the Emergency, he said, “Jayaprakash Narayanji, Nanaji Deshmukhji, Ramnath Goenkaji and Rashtra Kavi Dinkarji played a key role in turning the course of India’s democracy in the direction of truth”.

Union Minister for Home and Cooperation Amit Shah, Indian Express Chairman Viveck Goenka, Executive Director Anant Goenka and the Governance awards recipients at the award ceremony in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Express Photo)

On the theme of governance, Shah said the Government had brought a transformative change. “The Modi Government does not make policies to please people. It makes policies that will be good for the people. When we brought the GST, some people opposed it. When we brought DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer), it was opposed. It was natural, there were middlemen who would lose out. So our decisions may have been bitter but they were for the good of the people. We never think about votebanks while making policies. We only think about solving problems,” he said.

He also said the Government aims at resolving problems completely rather than making incremental progress. “We are not saying we will make so many toilets this year. We make targets such as by the end of 2024, every house in the country will have a toilet. We have an approach of obliterating the problem,” Shah said.

He said the Government had brought in political stability, corruption-free governance, development-oriented policies, an investment-friendly agenda and a peaceful environment. On the topic of GST, Shah took aim at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, saying that in 2022-23, the collection had crossed Rs 1.5 lakh crore and this was “for those who call it Gabbar Singh Tax”.

Union Minister for Home and Cooperation Amit Shah (extreme left) at The Indian Express Excellence in Governance Awards in New Delhi. (Express Photo)

Listing the Government’s achievements, he said India is No. 1 in smartphone data consumption, global fintech and IT BPO, and the third-largest aviation and auto market. He also spoke about the aspirational districts programme, Covid vaccination drive, start-up ecosystem and one-nation-one-ration-card scheme, saying some of these were overlooked by the media.

Raj Kamal Jha, Chief Editor, The Indian Express. (Express Photo)

Shah said that while all governments had worked for the progress of the country, some efforts needed special recognition. “Whoever may be in power, good work must be accepted. If we do not have the openness to accept the results of a government’s good work, irrespective of its ideology, then we are not doing journalism but activism. An activist cannot be a journalist and a journalist cannot be an activist. If the two start doing each other’s work, it will bring trouble. I see this these days often so I made it a point to bring it up,” he said.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, The Indian Express Group Chairman and Managing Director Viveck Goenka, Executive Director Anant Goenka, A S Rajgopal of NxtGen, Vikram Shroff of UPL and other partners with winners of The Indian Express Excellence in Governance Awards in New Delhi Tuesday. (Express Photo)

In his speech, Goenka said, “When we are entering a fractious year ahead of the general elections, the awards show that good governance is, by definition, non-partisan. Our categories track progress in a sweeping range of areas that touch all aspects of life, from Education and Healthcare to Agriculture, Skill, E-MSMEs, Start Up. Excellence in these is neither anti-this nor pro-that. It’s the common good. This is a powerful reminder that in a democracy, the best of public service doesn’t need to be contested, not everything is ‘tu-tu main-main’. Transformative change and empowerment are their own ideology.”

In his introductory remarks, Raj Kamal Jha, Chief Editor, The Indian Express, said, “These awards are for work done in 2020 and 2021, right through the pandemic, the very years we had locked ourselves down… When we were gripped by a sense of fear and loss… In that blur, it was easy to miss or not see that there were invisible hands that ensured zero disruption in public utilities…That was, in fact, good governance, the work we celebrate this evening.”