Urging people to elect Bharatiya Janata Party candidates on municipal seats, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, on Wednesday, said that the triple-engine government would increase the pace of development three times at municipalities, municipal councils and municipal corporations.
Inaugurating and laying foundation stones of 87 developmental projects worth Rs 308.18 crore and addressing the gathering at the Prabuddhajan Sammelan in Shahjahanpur, Yogi said: “I must congratulate you for electing all your representatives from the BJP, which also gave you the bonus of a Rajya Sabha MP and three MLCs from the party to work for the development of the district. Now, it is time to elect BJP candidates on municipal seats to accelerate pace of development across municipal councils and municipalities.”
Emphasising that the political leadership of Shahjahanpur had played big role in the development of the city in the recent past, Yogi said that it was the BJP government which promoted Shahjahanpur from a municipality to a municipal corporation, providing it many benefits, which were denied to it by the previous governments that treated development as a formality rather than a mission.
“Today, if 20,170 houses have been built for the poor in Shahjahanpur alone, it is because we promoted the city to a municipal corporation,” Yogi remarked, adding that much work in terms of road infrastructure, traffic safety and cleanliness had been done in the district through introduction of Integrated Traffic Management System and Integrated Control Command Centre for handling traffic, garbage disposal as well as management of diseases and natural disasters.
“There was a time when UP’s cities ranked among the dirtiest cities of the country with Gonda known as the dirtiest. However, today all the 17 municipal corporations have respectable rankings in terms of cleanliness,” Yogi said.
According to him, smart city and safe city missions are interrelated and therefore CCTV cameras are being installed to keep vigil on anti-social elements and take them to task before they manage to flee, for the safety of women, traders and others. The chief minister said not only cities, the government had also launched programmes to make the youth smarter, and it was paying off as well.
Besides, the chief minister pointed out that 4.70 lakh farmers of Shahjahanpur were benefiting from PM Kisan Samman Nidhi whereas 4.65 lakh residents had got golden cards under Ayushman Bharat scheme. “Marriage of 300 couples has taken place under the Chief Minister Mass Marriage Scheme whereas more than 1.9 lakh houses have been connected under Jal Jeevan Mission and over 3,800 people have got employment,” he added.
Yogi added: “Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mantra of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ was working well for all, especially the needy and the deprived. He said no one before Prime Minister Modi thought of welfare of street vendors and for the first time, they were getting interest-free loans to expand their businesses. He said in Shahjahanpur alone, 14,000 street vendors had received loans.
Yogi said that the government had introduced 25 investor-friendly policies that had eased about 340 procedures related to provision of no objection certificate (NOC) to investors, adding that once an entrepreneur was registered all the procedures were expedited and the investor also became entitled for incentives announced by the government.
The chief minister pointed out that the Global Investors’ Summit was going to be held in Lucknow from February 10 to 12 next year to invite investors from different countries to invest in UP as Uttar Pradesh boasts of the best policies. He added that the government was determined to make UP the number one economy.
Meanwhile, the chief minister also presented cheques, keys and certificates to the beneficiaries of various government schemes.