Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated on Sunday that India cannot afford to miss the fourth industrial revolution while emphasising that there would be no more “repeated opportunities.”
PM Modi remarked in a speech to a crowd after launching construction projects in Maharashtra that India has previously missed out on taking full advantage of previous industrial revolutions.
“When the first industrial revolution came, India could not take benefit from it. We lagged behind in the second and third industrial revolution, but today when it’s time for the fourth industrial revolution, India cannot miss it. A long-term vision is pivotal for stable growth and development. India cannot miss the fourth industrial revolution, opportunity won’t come again,” PM Modi said.
The Prime Minister underlined the necessity for long-term solutions to issues and stressed that infrastructure is the “foundation of lasting development” in order for the nation to advance.
“No country can run with shortcuts. A long-term vision is necessary for permanent development and solution. The base of permanent development is infrastructure. South Korea was a poor country once, but it changed its fate through infrastructure. Today the Gulf countries are so progressed also because they have also modernised their infrastructure and future-ready in the last 3-4 decades,” he said.
The Prime Minister also brought up Singapore’s infrastructure, noting that due to investments in that sector and sound economic decisions, the nation has grown to be a “major centre of the economy” for the entire world.
“A few decades ago, Singapore was also a normal island country. Singapore invested in infrastructure and made the right economic policies and today it has become a big centre of the economy of the world. These countries would not have been able to reach the height which they have achieved now if they had followed shortcut politics and looted the tax-payers money,” he said.
“But India has got this opportunity. In the earlier governments, the tax-payers who paid taxes, either it was used for corruption by the earlier governments or for strengthening the vote bank,” PM added.