Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said his government has saved more than Rs 1 lakh crore by unearthing Rs 65,000 crore of black money and saving another Rs 36,000 crore through direct benefit transfers, PTI reported. He said the money was saved “without launching surgical strikes” against black money, and he wondered how much more the Centre could do in the sector if it adopted the approach similar to that of the Indian Army’s against terror. He invoked the recent surgical strikes carried out on terror launch pads along the Line of Control to make his point. “And this Rs 1 lakh crore has been brought back without launching surgical strikes,” Modi said.

The prime minister said the National Democratic Alliance has saved crores that "used to leak in the form of subsidies for gas cylinders, scholarship, pension, by ensuring that right person gets the benefits". “If we do surgical strikes [in this area], you can imagine what all will come out,” the prime minister said. He made the statements at a camp to distribute ‘assistive devices’ to over 8,000 people with special needs in Vadodara.

Modi said the previous Congress government had not done enough for people with special needs. “Knowingly or unknowingly, this country has remained insensitive towards the Divyangs. “The government buildings only had facility for healthy persons. We launched Sugamya Bharat mission, so that government buildings, hospitals, platforms are built in such a way that they have access facility for the Divyangs,” the prime minister said. There have been only 56 such camps between 1992 and 2014, while the Bharatiya Janata Party government organised 4,500 such programmes since it came to power, Modi said.

The government has recruited 14,500 people with special needs, and is working towards developing a common sign language in the country. Different sign languages are practiced in different parts of the country at present. Modi said India was being hailed as the fastest growing economy in the world, and the solution to most problems was development. “Remember the days of 2014, or 2013, what were the headlines? They did this much [corruption] in coal, so much in spectrum. Since the time you gave me the responsibility, the news is [about] doing good for Divyangs, India’s progress in world economy and development,” he said.