At new office in 'Seva Teerth', PM announces key welfare projects

New Delhi: Three years after inaugurating the new Parliament building, the Union government opened the Prime Minister’s new office at Seva Teerth, marking a symbolic break from colonial-era structures. On Friday morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi shifted to the new premises from the South Block near Rashtrapati Bhavan on Raisina Hill.

The relocation coincided with February 13, marking 95 years since the formal inauguration of New Delhi as India’s capital in 1931.

The Prime Minister arrived at the Seva Teerth complex in a motorcade along with Union Ministers Manohar Lal and Jitendra Singh and senior PMO officials. He inaugurated the complex, which houses the Prime Minister’s Office, the National Security Council Secretariat, and the Cabinet Secretariat.

Modi offered prayers by garlanding a statue of Lord Ganesha at the PMO and cleared several proposals focused on the welfare of women, farmers, youth, and vulnerable sections.

In the presence of National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Minister of State Jitendra Singh, and senior officials, including principal secretaries P K Mishra and Shaktikanta Das, the Prime Minister signed files approving key initiatives. These included the PM RAHAT Scheme for providing life-saving protection and the expansion of the lakhpati didis programme (women self-help group scheme) to six crore women.

Under the PM RAHAT scheme, accident victims will receive cashless treatment of up to ₹1.5 lakh, ensuring timely medical assistance, officials said.

The government has already surpassed the target of three crore lakhpati didis, achieving it more than a year before the original March 2027 deadline. The Prime Minister has now set a new goal of six crore lakhpati didis by March 2029, significantly expanding the programme’s reach.

To support farmers, the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund has been increased to ₹2 lakh crore, aimed at strengthening the country’s agricultural value chain.

Modi also cleared the Startup India Fund of Funds 2.0 with an allocation of ₹10,000 crore.

"To power India's innovation ecosystem, especially in deep tech, early-stage ideas, advanced manufacturing and breakthrough technologies, the Prime Minister has approved the Startup India FoF 2.0 with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore," an official said.

After arriving at the new office, Modi unveiled the Seva Teerth plaque at the complex, with the name inscribed in Devanagari script. Beneath it is the motto ‘Nagrik Devo Bhava’ (citizen is akin to God), PTI reported.

With this move, the PMO will relocate from the South Block to Seva Teerth, bringing together the Cabinet Secretariat and National Security Council Secretariat, which were earlier located separately.

Mission to remove colonial-era symbols
Since 2014, the Modi government has taken continuous steps to move away from colonial symbols and promote a new administrative mindset, officials said.

They noted that the Prime Minister’s Office is now known as Seva Teerth, Central Secretariat buildings have been renamed Kartavya Bhawan, and Rajpath has been rechristened as Kartavya Path.

Similarly, Race Course Road has been renamed Lok Kalyan Marg, while Raj Bhawans and Raj Niwas have been renamed Lok Bhavan and Lok Niwas.

"The inauguration marks a transformative milestone in India's administrative governance architecture and reflects the Prime Minister's commitment to building a modern, efficient, accessible and citizen-centric governance ecosystem, a statement from the PMO said on Thursday.

For decades, several ministries and government departments operated from ageing and scattered buildings across the Central Vista area.

This led to coordination difficulties, higher maintenance costs, and inefficient working conditions. The new complexes aim to resolve these issues by bringing administrative functions under modern, integrated, and future-ready facilities, it added.