Vaccination drive going well world surprised at Indian economy's V-shaped recovery Shah

    Ahmedabad, Jan 21 (PTI) The Indian economy is
undergoing a "V-shaped recovery" and the world is watching the
same in surprise, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on
Thursday.
    Shah, one of the senior most members of the cabinet,
also said the COVID-19 vaccination drive is progressing well
and once everyone is vaccinated, "we will attain victory over
the pandemic".
    He made the comment while joining through vide-
conference the inauguration of a four-lane over-bridge in
Shilaj here by Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel.
    "Economies of all countries in the world were affected
due to the coronavirus. But, the world is surprised and
watching the V-shaped recovery of the Indian economy," Shah
said.
    The GDP contracted by 23.9 per cent in the June 2020
quarter due to the lockdown, and the contraction narrowed down
to 7.5 per cent in the September quarter as compared to the
same in the year-ago period, as the unlock process began.
    The demand situation has shown further improvement in
the December quarter which witnessed the festivities, with
several high-frequency indicators illustrating the same.
    The Union government now expects the GDP to close FY21
with a contraction of 7.7 per cent.
    Shah also said that infrastructure development carried
out under the Narendra Modi regime in the last six years
exceeds that done by governments in the 20 years preceding the
NDA government.
    "The work done in the infrastructure sector in last
six years is equivalent to that done in 20 years of previous
governments," he said.
    He listed various infrastructure works like Metro
lines, bullet train and other projects taken up by the Centre.
    He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is
working hard to develop infrastructure in the country, be it
rural or urban areas.
    The Modi government has provided electricity to all
villages of the country, road connectivity, and has provided
one bank account to every family.
    "Ten crore families, or 30 crore people, in India were
not having their own houses, and the way construction of
houses for low income groups is going on, we are confident
that every family will get a home by 2022," Shah said.
    "Another big project that we have taken up is
providing piped water to every household by 2022," he said.
    Shah said the government has also taken up the work of
removal of one lakh railway crossings on national and state
highways by building over-bridges or under-bridges on them.
The work on around 5,000 such crossings has been completed and
it is currently on in 8,000 other places, he said.
    "The Shilaj bridge (inaugurated here on Thursday) is
one such among the one lakh bridges (being built) on the
railway crossings," he said. PTI PD AA
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)