New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi gives his ministerial colleagues all the freedom and encourages them to take decisions, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Wednesday while remarking that "policy paralysis" had come to an end under the new regime.
"He gives us so much freedom and has only one mantra for us -- that 'you should have the courage to take decisions. Listen to all, but take decisions which are best for the country'," Javadekar said with reference to Modi.
Javadekar outright dismissed suggestions that the prime minister wielded too much authority over his colleagues or had ticked off a minister for wearing jeans or that there had been any such instances.
"We have got the person with the best dressing sense and he will not bar someone from wearing certain clothes. The PMO is not so childish.
"To imagine such things, it is an unsuccessful attempt to cause damage to his (Modi's) image. But we are directly connected with the people," Javadekar said even as he claimed that some people from Congress were spreading misinformation.
As his dispensation marks 100 days in power, the minister said that people had chosen the NDA government for five years and not just hundred days. He averred that during this period, however, "policy paralysis" has ended and decisions are being taken in all ministries.
He added that the prices of petrol have been reduced twice
recently and steps taken in these 100 days to keep the prices of food items in check.
Javadekar said that in Rajya Sabha recently, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had congratulated him when he was told that 17 projects which had been referred to the Environment and Forests ministry by the previous regime had been cleared now after NDA had come to power.
Javadekar, who also holds charge of the Ministry of Environment and Forests in the Modi government, said that proposals like that for a BSF post in Kutch or relating to a broken fence along the Bangladesh border, which were held back, had been cleared by the NDA government.
