Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday, 28 June declared that the Narendra Modi-led government had transformed the lives of 70 crore poor people over the past 12 years by delivering housing, electricity, sanitation, drinking water, cooking gas, food security and healthcare — calling it the country's most comprehensive poverty alleviation effort. Shah made the remarks in Gandhinagar after launching the PM Family Care Tracker (PM-FCT) pilot project and Health Passports.

Shah's Assessment of 12 Years of Welfare Delivery

Addressing the gathering, Shah said improving living standards for the poor had been the central priority of the government since 2014. 'Under the leadership of PM Modi, a comprehensive effort has been made to improve the standard of living of 70 crore poor people in this country,' he said. He drew on personal experience to illustrate the scale of deprivation that existed before these programmes were rolled out.

Recalling visits to the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh before 2014, Shah described witnessing extreme poverty first-hand. 'People had no homes. If there were no home, there could be no electricity. There were countless houses without toilets. Even where there was a hut, there was no water supply inside,' he said.

What the Government Delivered, in Shah's Words

Shah listed the interventions the government had made: 'Within just 12 years, these 70 crore poor people have been provided with houses, electricity, tap water, toilets, gas cylinders, five kilograms of food grains, free medical treatment up to ₹5 lakh.' He added that 3 crore houses had already been completed under the housing scheme, with 1 crore more currently under construction.

Shah also highlighted the human dimension of the welfare push, noting that many beneficiaries had told him theirs was the first generation to live in homes with basic amenities. 'After witnessing five generations in their family, this is the first time they have entered a home that has gas, a toilet, drinking water, food grains, and electricity. The dream of five generations has been fulfilled within 12 years,' he said.

PM Family Care Tracker: The Next Phase

The launch of the PM Family Care Tracker (PM-FCT) pilot in Gandhinagar marks what Shah described as the next stage of welfare delivery. The system is designed to ensure children from poor families receive timely healthcare, nutrition and education services through integrated monitoring. The simultaneous rollout of Health Passports is intended to create portable health records for beneficiary families, enabling continuity of care across government schemes.

This comes amid a broader push by the Centre to shift welfare delivery from scheme-based silos toward family-level outcome tracking — a model that, if scaled, could reshape how India measures and delivers social protection. How the PM-FCT performs in its Gandhinagar pilot will determine whether the model is extended nationally.