Most of the newly appointed Union Ministers today took charge of their Ministries pledging for work for the betterment of common people. AIR correspondent reports :While Rural Development Minister Gopinath Munde ensured the restructuring of MGNREGA to provide more employment to rural poor, the Food Processing Industries Minister, Harsimrat Kaur Badal said she will try to ensure remunerative prices to farmers for their produce.
Najma Heptullah, the Minority Affairs Minister emphasized a concrete programme to ensure progress of all minorities with a special focus on education facilities while the Health Minister Harsh Vardhan stressed on the formulation of new policies to provide better health facilities.
Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan assured to contain prices of food items. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad wanted to repeal the retrospective tax regime to boost foreign investment whereas the Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reiterated her party's position not to allow FDI in multi-brand retail which may adversely impact the small traders and farmers.
Sadanad Gowda, Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan, Thawar Chand Gehlot, Jual Oram, Piyush Goyal, Sarvanand Sonowal Shripad Yesso Naik and Jitendra Singh were among the Ministers who took charge of their offices.
Finance Minister Jaitley who assumed charge today told reporters that containing price rise, restoring confidence of investors in the economy and promoting growth with focus on control on fiscal deficit are his top priorities.
Mr Jaitley, who also assumed additional charge of Defence ministry, said concern over slowdown in decision-making in defence and expediting modernisation will be top priority. He said, the appointment of Lieutenant General Dalbir Singh Suhag as the next Army Chief will not be affected by the change of government.
Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan called on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and discussed the prevailing economic situation as well as the issues related to the rise in prices. The meeting, which comes just days before the next bi-monthly monetary policy review on 3rd of next month, lasted for about an hour. Talking to reporters after the meeting, Rajan said that curbing inflation is a task that the government and the RBI are engaged with.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar, who also assumed office today, said that freedom of the press is important for the success of democracy. Talking to reporters, he said that media organisations should work in coordination with political leaders to move forward in this direction. Mr Javadekar said press freedom will be the priority of the NDA government.
