Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday urged people to invest their money in banks instead of buying gold and keeping it safely, which is generally considered as an unproductive investment.
Modi said Indians have a good habit of savings, but these savings have diverted to gold over the time as a measure of security and banks have a challenge to look into ways to discourage huge amounts of money being kept in gold.
“The challenge is not to rely on gold. People buy gold and they have that psychological feeling that gold is safe, secure and good for the future… the challenge for banks was to assure people that a bank account would ensure easy access to their savings whenever required,” Modi said while dedicating the ICICI Digital Village to the nation, adding this could help banks become the agents of social transformation.
Pitching for greater cashless banking transactions, Prime Minister also said this can be the best solution for the problem of black money. He said banks in India should compete for achieving maximum cashless transactions, as this would be the “best solution” to the problem of black money.
Gold imports have been a big strain on the country’s external finances with the current account deficit rising to 2.1 per cent of the GDP during the July-September period of 2014.
As a follow-up to the ‘Swachh Bharat’ campaign year, Modi also exhorted for the creation of one lakh young entrepreneurs to handle solid and water waste management in the country. “Only then can the Swachh Bharat campaign will be sustainable. Rural development is an area of lot possibilities. It can be a power of economic development,” Modi said.
Check out PM Narendra Modi’s speech during Indian Science Congress:
Sharing my speech at the 102nd Indian Science Congress. http://t.co/e6SRn7i0A6 pic.twitter.com/KHP1eLdnMQ
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 3, 2015
Finance minister Arun Jaitley said the government will pursue the roadmap of reforms initiated by it. “We will never take a step which is contrarion. The challenge is to bring in investments and improve the infrastructure for the overall development,” he said. “We will enter into the next phase of reforms which is essential for the economy.”
Check out PMO’s tweet of Narendra Modi about media at an event:
Earlier, newspapers had to find news. Now it is the other way round. Everyone wants to be in media: PM @narendramodi pic.twitter.com/z1pcsluIWS
— PMO India (@PMOIndia) January 3, 2015