Model Code of Conduct to come in force on March 6-8

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

exclusive report 

Model Code of Conduct to come in force on March 6-8

PM Modi to launch 70 projects in 70 days

Countdown for Lok Sabha poll begins

Amit Shah placates annoyed Mps

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, Dec. 29

The countdown for the Lok Sabha poll has begun which is just 70 days away. As the Model Code of Conduct is likely to come in force any time between March 6-8 when the Election Commission issues notification, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on a hurricane tour of the country inaugurating one project or the other and rolling out series of welfare schemes to placate all section of society. All infrastructure ministries including the Road Transport have been directed to complete projects. The Road ministry itself is in the process of completing projects worth Rs one lakh crores. In order to steal the last mile advantage, Modi will be on a spree to open projects and club them with Congress bashing. A number of AIIMS in various states which are being set up, may be opened by February. If sources are to be believed, Modi will inaugurate one project a day in the next 50 working days.

If sources are to be believed, the government will not wait for the Interim Budget to be presented on February 1 by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to announce pre-poll doles. In fact, most of the measures relating to the farming, MSMEs, jobless youth and others will be announced immediately after the Parliament's session on January 8.

Since the Interim Budget session will be in continuation of the Winter session, both houses of parliament will re-assemble on January 30. The Budget session will end on February 15.

The PM is meticulously planning his 70-day working plan and traveling almost every day to launch one project or the other as part of his mission “Phir Ek Baar Modi Sarkar”. If he was in Varanasi today, he will be in Port Blair tomorrow where Netaji declared India's first War of Independence.

A high-level team comprising of BJP president Amit Shah, Arun Jaitley and Railway & Coal Minister Piyush Goyal is over-seeing the 2019 poll planning. They are in regular touch with the PM on an hourly basis to discuss every move. Though “Phir Ek Baar Modi Sarkar” tagline is yet to be given the go-ahead for the 2019 parliamentary polls as Modi wants something more catchy.

Piyush Goyal has ordered a fresh nation-wide survey which is being conducted by three leading pollsters to gauge the mood of the nation in different regions. Sources say it was ordered in the third week of December and the report will come in the second week of January. A similar survey by two leading agencies was conducted in August which had given BJP 300 plus seats. But the situation has undergone a sea-change after losses in three Hindi speaking states leaving Modi-Amit Shah team bewildered.

Shah is now holding parleys with 350 Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Mps. He meets 40 Mps every day in two batches so that he could listen to them carefully. He has already met Mps from Bihar, Jharkhand & UP. This is first time he has done in 4 years and signals a change in the handling. Surely, the party doesn't want to leave anything chances before the D-day in May, 2019.

ends

Modi sends 8 top officers to Maharashtra, Goa

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Pre-poll push for PM's schemes

Modi sends 8 top officers to Maharashtra, Goa

Officers to camp at 8 districts

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, Oct 27

Eight senior officers of the rank of additional secretaries and joint secretaries are being deputed shortly by the Prime Minister to Maharashtra & Goa to camp in eight clusters to over-see welfare work 8 clusters.

These officers have been identified and will be sent to these eight districts after under-going training program. These officers will be deputed Pune, Nashik, Dhule, Sangli, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Thane and North Goa. These senior IAS officers will camp in these aspirational districts to over-see the implementation of Prime Minister Modi's welfare schemes.

The PM plans to depute nearly 750 officers of the Centre who will be tasked in coming months to cover 45,000 villages in 115 ‘aspirational districts’ with seven government schemes. The scheme is being closely monitored by the Prime Minister’s Office.

An officer has been designated for every 75 villages and each has been tasked to undertake at least three visits to the village spanning four seven days. While each district has been assigned a ‘prabhari officer’ in a joint or an additional secretary role, 322 directors and deputy secretary officers and another 322 under-secretaries have been assigned the jobs of ‘nodal officers’. Four to 10 such nodal officers have been tagged with each prabhari officer, who will assign villages for tour scheduling and coordinate the visits of nodal officers. In the first phase, 80 officers have been chosen who will visit 80 districts spanning over several states.

The government is also set to announce a package of benefits for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) spread across these 80 districts. They will monitor social security benefits for workers

The scheme is part of Modi's pre-election push for the MSME sector which employs over a 120 million people in over 6 crores units. The list of clusters range from food processing units to steel ancillary, to Pharma and other sectors in these seven districts of Maharashtra and one in Goa. They will work with officers from banks, EPFO, ECIS, SIDBI to ensure that targets are met. The officers will see whether these units have been trained to get the benefits of government's e-marketplace (GeM) portal.

This will help them to ensure that government and its agencies can buy directly from the small units.