Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s model of governance prepares the nation for a quantum jump to overtake other countries of the world in the next few years, which in a nutshell would mean that Modi at 20 lays the foundation for India in 2047, Union Minister of State for Science & Technology Dr Jitendra Singh said on Saturday.

In order to understand the essence and the spirit of “Modi@20” it is essential to read the book in its entirety and in its real context and perspective, he said while delivering the keynote address on the book “Modi @ 20 – Dreams Meet Delivery” at Vaishnav College for Women here.

“Modi@20: Dreams Meet Delivery” is a compilation of chapters written by Amit Shah, S Jaishankar, Amish Tripathi, P V Sindhu, Anupam Kher, and Sudha Murthy, among others.

The book “Modi @2.0: Dreams meet Delivery” is about the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a watershed moment in Indian politics.

Singh made a special mention of the chapter by Home Minister Amit Shah titled “Democracy, Delivery and Politics of Hope,” which traces nation’s pessimism getting replaced with optimism and Sudha Murthy’s chapter which illustrates the awakening of aspirational India under Modi. Lata Mangeshkar’s chapter highlights Modi’s ability to strike a personal chord, he said.

“Modi is the only Indian leader to have completed 20 years as the head of government, first as chief minister and then as Prime Minister and across the world also this could be a rare feat to have been achieved. Secondly, Modi was the rare case of a Chief Minister directly assuming the position of Prime Minister without having been a Member of Parliament in the past,” Singh said.

Interestingly, before he became Chief minister in 2002, Modi never held any position in the government nor did he contest any election in the past. He was mostly occupied in the organisational activities.

“We need to study and analyse what are the essential factors that have sustained Modi’s governance model for 20 years and continue to sustain beyond 20 years. Significantly, instead of being affected by the principle of diminishing returns, each passing year of Modi’s governance of 20 years has yielded increasing returns and each new challenge has enabled this governance model to emerge stronger, more effective and enduring,” Singh said.

Soon after Modi took over as chief minister of Gujarat, his first challenge was a devastating earthquake in Bhuj and as he completed 20 years as head of government, the latest challenge he confronted was the pandemic sweeping across the nation of 140 crore people.

Modi brought in optimum use of technology for last-mile delivery through measures like direct benefit transfer (DBT), his governance became more and more technology driven which not only helped in ensuring ease of living for common citizen through measure like single portal and single form, among others, but also enabled objective delivery of service by civil servants through innovative concepts like “Mission Karmyogi”.

BJP leader H Raja and party’s State president K Annamalai too participated in the event.