The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh has said that the GST rollout and re-monetization are among the major bold initiatives of the Central Government. Addressing the 43rd Advanced Professional Programme in Public Administration organized by the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) here yesterday with the support of Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT), he said these initiatives could be carried forward successfully because of the people’s faith in the sincerity and commitment of the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.

In his Inaugural address, Dr Jitendra Singh said, even though the GST exercise went on for over a decade and neither Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi nor the present government denies credit to the preceding Prime Ministers and their governments for their contribution, but the facts on record would always bear out that what could not be accomplished in over a decade, was made possible within three years simply because of sincere and transparent approach of the present Government and diligently conducted deliberations by Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley.

Dr Jitendra Singh said that in spite of initial hardships, the people chose to stand by the Prime Minister’s decision of re-monetization because, they trusted that, in the long run, this would be to their benefit and help the future of their children.

Dr Jitendra Singh said that any future agenda or policy planning will have to be based on the aspirations of the youth of the country. He also suggested that the training programmes in Public Administration should keep on board youth representatives whose inputs could determine the agenda, both for governance as well as public service. Living up to the pragmatism and aspiration of "New India", Dr Jitendra Singh said, the Central Government has scrapped nearly 1,500 such rules and laws, which had turned obsolete and were no longer relevant. At the same time, to make governance more youth centric, revolutionary decisions like self-attestation of certificates and abolition of interviews for job selection at junior levels have been taken, he added.

Dr Tishyarakshit Chatterjee, Director IIPA, Shri P.N. Chaturvedi, former Governor of Karnataka and Prof. C. Sheela Reddy, Programme Director were also present.