PM's I-Day Speech: No freebies announced, but some promises made

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Independence-Day address to the nation from Red Fort on Thursday - the final one before the 2014 general elections - was no shower of freebies or announcement of populist schemes. Instead, it was a recollection and review of nine years of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

While the PM said work would start on two new ports, eight airports, new industrial corridors and rail projects over the next few months, he expressed satisfaction that some schemes for the poor had worked well and more were in the offing. The speech sought to reinforce the belief that UPA would continue with what it believes is its unique selling point - "new rights to the common man, leading to his social and economic empowerment".

Emphasising agricultural growth over the nine years of UPA, Singh said record production had enabled the food security law, which would soon be passed. He highlighted that rural wages, too, had increased much faster during this period and said the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme had provided employment to tens of millions in rural areas.

He conceded measuring poverty was a difficult task but added, no matter what the definition, "it cannot be denied that the pace of reduction in poverty has increased after 2004".

Singh enumerated the strides in education - through the mid-day meal scheme, the right to education and the fact that the number of young men and women going to college had more than doubled over the past nine years.

Eight new IITs, seven New IIMs, 16 new Central universities and 10 new NITs had been opened, he said. All of these were poised to give the country the benefit of the demographic dividend.

Though unexpected, Singh accepted the government's skill-development programme had not had the desired result: "In the area of skill development, we could not initially achieve as much progress as we wanted. But now the pace has picked up. We have established the National Skill Development Authority a few months back. We will shortly launch a new scheme, under which those who have successfully acquired new skills will be given a grant of about Rs 10,000, he said.