On Ambedkar Jayanti, PM Narendra Modi's Big Plans For Education, Digital Economy: 10 Points

The Prime Minister tweeted yesterday saying, "We are unwavering in our efforts towards creating a strong, prosperous and inclusive India of Dr. Ambedkar's dreams".

Prime Minister Modi also tweeted, "Will join culmination of the DigiDhan Mela, where I will present awards to Mega Draw winners of Lucky Grahak Yojana and DigiDhan Vyapar Yojna (sic)".

He arrived in Nagpur at around 11 am, and will be in the city till 2:15 pm. He first visited Deekshabhoomi - the place where Dr Ambedkar embraced Buddhism with his followers on the occasion of Ashok Vijaya Dashami on October 14, 1956. He offered prayers on Dr. BR Ambedkar's 126th birth anniversary.

PM Modi then visited the Koradi thermal power station where he launched Mahagenco's 1,980-MW Koradi Thermal Power project. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Union minister Nitin Gadkari and Governor C Vidyasagar Rao were also present at the site.

PM Modi's next stop is the Mankapur sports complex, from where he will be inaugurating a number of education projects. He will lay the foundation stone for the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Nagpur's campus coming up on a 150-acre plot of land in Mihan. He will also inaugurate other premier institutes like the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Indian Institute of Information and Technology (IIIT) and Maharashtra National Law University (MNLU) via video-conferencing from Mankapur Indoor stadium.

At around 12:30 pm, PM Modi will attend the inauguration programme of various government schemes, organised by NITI Aayog. The PM will give awards to winners of the Lucky Grahak Yojana and DigiDhan Vyapar Yojna - schemes which were launched in December 2016 to incentivise digital payments in the country. PM Modi will also release the BHIM-Aadhaar interface, which will enable digital payments using biometric data. Based on this, people would be able to make digital payments without having a mobile phone, Internet connection, debit or credit card.

A statement issued by the NITI Aayog said, "Any citizen without access to smart phones, the Internet, debit or credit cards will be able to transact digitally through the BHIM-Aadhaar platform, thus realising Ambedkar's vision of social and financial empowerment for all". It added that 27 major banks were already on board with around three lakh merchants so that they can start accepting payments using BHIM-Aadhaar.

During the event, PM Modi will also launch two new initiatives to push digital payments - cash back and referral bonus schemes - with an outlay of Rs 495 crore for a period of six months. "Under the referral bonus scheme, both the existing user who refers BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) and the new user who adopts BHIM would get a cash bonus credited directly to their account. Under the cashback scheme, the merchants will get a cashback on every transaction using BHIM," the statement added.

During the event, the Prime Minister is expected to declare about 75 townships going "less-cash" where the deployment of payment acceptance infrastructure is complete and all the families are covered under training programs. These townships are likely to generate over 1.5 lakh digital transactions every day, thereby leading to about 5.5 crore digital transactions in a year, a government statement said.

The visit will conclude with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's public address in Nagpur on Dr. BR Ambedkar's 126th birth anniversary. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal, Ramdas Athawale, Hansraj Ahir and other leaders will be accompanying PM Modi during his visit.