Washington D.C. [USA], Oct 24 (ANI): National general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Ram Madhav, on Monday, while addressing a gathering at the launch of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya forum here, spoke about how the governmental schemes worked extensively towards alleviation of poverty.

"Prime Minister Modi has introduced a program called Jan Dhan Yojna three years ago to provide zero balance accounts to the poorest of the poor in India. Until then in India, close to 250 million people out of 1.2 billion, close of one-fourth of the population did not have access to basic banking," he said.

"Today close to 300 million poor people have come forward to open bank accounts. 60,000 crore Indian rupees was collected through this zero balance bank accounts. Nobody had opened zero balance account, they have put some money in that," he added.

Speaking on the occassion Ram Madhav further said, "The integral Humanist thought of Deendayal Upadhyay can be summarised in three distinct ideas, dignity, freedom and Unity."

"Deendayal integral humanism talks about these three very important concepts. When he talked about freedom, his idea of freedom was freedom from hunger, freedom from poverty, freedom from illiteracy, economic freedom is what he meant by freedom," he added.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan also participated in the event, where he addressed the gathering as a keynote speaker. (ANI)


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