Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that Uttar Pradesh has become a revenue surplus state and there is no shortage of money. During his day-long visit to this parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi here on Monday, Yogi held a meeting with the newly-elected Mayor and corporators at Circuit House.
Addressing the meeting, the CM gave instructions to party representatives to ensure that the problems of the public are resolved on priority. “There is a budget of Rs 837 crore in the current financial year for Varanasi Nagar Nigam and it is for the first time such a huge budget has been given,” he said, adding that a new saga of development has been written in the history of Banaras in the last nine years. “The PM represents Kashi, the oldest city in the world,” he said, terming the newly-elected corporators as the foundation stones for the development of the city.
Referring to the purpose of the meeting, the CM said that its main objective is the cleanliness of the city and the issuance of municipal bonds. He said that the branding of the Nagar Nigam will be done only through cleanliness. Referring to the revolutionary changes that have taken place in the telecom sector, he said that with reforms the market grows and a new story of development is written. He laid special emphasis on construction of new complexes in place of old dilapidated shops in the city areas and insisted on making changes in the housing sector as well so that the standard of life of the people living in the slums can also be raised.
He laid special emphasis on adopting a holistic approach for the development of all. He asked the Nagar Nigam and Varanasi Development Authority (VDA) to come forward with a new strategy for this. Emphasising on making the city completely plastic free, he said that plastic and its products should be completely banned. In this, along with public awareness, he gave special instructions to ensure enforcement action as per the requirement. He directed the officers of the Nagar Nigam to ensure that during the regular cleaning of roads and streets in the cities, the garbage should be picked up immediately.
“There should be no dumping of garbage in vacant plots. Along with this, cleanliness of the vacant plots should also be ensured,” he said, laying emphasis on promoting tree plantation in city parks and on both sides of the city roads with public participation.
Yogi said that there is no paucity of funds for the development of Kashi, stressing only on working with full commitment.
After the month of Shrawan, he insisted on organising a big rally at the metropolitan level for cleanliness awareness. Giving information about the current status of the Nagar Nigam before the CM through a presentation, Municipal Commissioner Shipu Giri said that earlier there were 90 wards in Varanasi, which have now increased to 100. Earlier the area of Nagar Nigam was 82 square kilometres, which has now increased to 186 square kilometres. The zone has been increased from 5 to 8 and the present budget of the Nagar Nigam is Rs 837 crore and the expenditure is Rs 820 crore and the capital expenditure is about Rs 400 crore.
The meeting was also attended by UP Ministers of State (Independent Charge) Ravindra Jaiswal and Dayashankar Mishra ‘Dayalu’, Zila Panchayat Chairperson Poonam Maurya, Mayor Ashok Tiwari, former MLC Ashok Dhawan, MLAs Dr Neelkanth Tiwari and Dr Awadhesh Singh and party corporators apart from other senior BJP leaders,
During his stay, the CM offered prayers at Kal Bhairav and Shri Kashi Vishwanath temples and instructed the officials to provide better facilities to the devotees in the Shri Kashi Vishwanath Dham during the month of Shrawan. He met Kanchi Kamakoti Peethadhishwar Jagadguru Shankar Vijayendra Saraswati Ji Maharaj,who is staying for his ‘chaturmas’ in the city these days.
