Reiterating his government’s commitment to eradicate encephalitis from eastern part of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that villagers need to keep ponds and other water bodies `clean’ to fight this dreaded disease which is taking hundreds of lives of children every year.
“You cannot fight this disease if you cannot keep water bodies clean. It is responsibility of the villagers to keep area around their villages clean. The state government will extend all possible help to the villagers,” Yogi said while addressing a function after distribution of mechanised instruments for Divyangs in Deoria on Sunday.
He said that JE spread through bite of mosquito but more dangerous AES (Acquired Encephalitis Syndrom) spreads through polluted water. The virus and bacteria of this dreaded disease pass into ground water when we do not main cleanliness. “We can beat this dreaded AES only if we can keep our environment clean,” he said.
A drive must be initiated to clean all the rivers, ponds and other water bodies in cities, towns and villages under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the chief minister said.
Interestingly over 200 Divyangs, majority of them were handicapped after encephalitis attack were given mechanised instruments. A few of them were given wheel chairs.
“The fight against encephalitis should take the form of campaign. The Government will take a lead but the support should come from villagers. It is our commitment to start cleanliness campaign but it is the responsibility of the people to keep water bodies clean. Open defecation should end. Villagers should start using laterins. Early they declare their villages Open Defecation Free better it would be for them,” Yogi said.
Earlier in the day while addressing foundation day of a Hindi daily in Gorakhpur CM said that social media has emerged as an alternative to electronic and print media. “The digitalisation has speeded up information dissemination process. Any incident can reach crore within few seconds. This medium has emerged as an alternative to print and electronic media,” he said.
But this medium has helped in spreading mis-information. People read and pass on the information without verifying the content. This lead to tension and sometimes to riot like situation, Yogi said. “People are now hooked to the mobile and this is a great challenge to the traditional media,” he said.
Speaker of Vidhan Sabha Hridaya Narain Dixit said that media should stay away from sensationalising the news. Sometimes, media is tempted to give a slant to a report which affects the credibility of that organisation. “Stay committed to your principle of impartiality. This will give you good name,” he said.