Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the ‘bhavya, divya and navya’ development of Kashi was attracting the entire world as the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government believed that development should be mobile, progressive and sensitive and empower the poor, downtrodden, suppressed, Dalits and tribals.
Modi was addressing a public meeting at Dr Sampurnanand Sports Stadium in Sigra where he dedicated and laid foundation stones of dozens of projects worth over Rs 1,700 crore.
This was the first visit of the prime minister to his parliamentary constituency after the thumping victories of BJP in assembly elections in the state.
“We do not believe in adopting shortcuts for development as was seen in the past,” he said, adding that it was the reason why apart from maintaining the heritage of this ancient city (Varanasi), the process of development had continued during the last eight years.
“On the one hand, roads have been widened, infrastructure improved and new facilities provided in different fields, and, on the other, even the kunds (ponds), lanes, ghats have been beautified,” he said.
The prime minister said that Kashi was the best example of the continuous process of development as when some projects were completed, work on others were started.
“Development is progressive because the focus is on several areas, including education, health and others and the benefits of all these works are being given to the poor and other weaker sections. It indicates how sensitive our policies are,” he said, adding that while the poor were given houses, toilets, cooking gas connections, the government also developed vending zones for small traders. He cited the examples of vending zones developed at Dashashwamedh-Godowlia and the newly-inaugurated Lahartara-Chowkaghat flyover.
Highlighting the various development projects launched for the vendors, the prime minister said that more than 35 lakh vendors received bank loans under SVANidhi Yojana and out of them thousands were from Kashi.
“It is our commitment to respect the fate of the people,” he said, adding that since the development of Shri Kashi Vishwanath Dham (corridor), there was not a single day when the rush of devotees was not in lakh because today people from across the world were coming to Varanasi to offer prayers to Baba Vishwanath and the number of devotees coming to Kashi was expected to increase in the coming auspicious month of Sawan.
Earlier, while inaugurating the three-day Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Samagam in which about 300 vice-chancellors, heads of various institutions and others were present, Modi called upon the academicians to make the country’s youth ready to face the challenges of the future.
“Our lab findings should be taken to the land and our land needs should be researched in our labs,” he said, while highlighting the New Education Policy-2020.
“We introduced the new policy when we realised that our education policy was the same which was given to us by the British government which needed such manpower which could help them,” he said.
“We should not produce only degree holders but our focus should be on a multi-dimensional system in which the youth can choose their career as per their interests with confidence and they can also face the challenges relating to demography and climate change and our institutions can be ranked better globally,” he added.
Welcoming the prime minister, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan termed the NEP (new education policy) as a philosophical document prepared after two years of continuous discussions and debates. In both the functions, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also welcomed the prime minister. Governor Anandiben Patel and other Central and state government ministers also attended the programmes.
Modi landed at Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport, Babatpur by a special plane in the afternoon and reached the Police Lines helipad in an Air Force chopper. From there, he first visited LT College (Orderly Bazar) to inaugurate Akshay Patra, a centralised mid-day meal kitchen which has the capacity to cook mid-day meals for around one lakh students. During his stay there, he interacted with dozens of children of government schools and praised their talents.