With elections around the corner in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is promoting his development agenda to sidestep differences within the Samajwadi Party and bitter clan war. (Reuters Image)

With elections around the corner in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is promoting his development agenda to sidestep differences within the Samajwadi Party and bitter clan war. A similar kind of development plank was visible prior to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when then BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had pitched for development over everything. In order to expedite ‘infrastructure projects’, his government has tabled the supplementary budget of over Rs 1,680 crore. Out of which Rs 1,000 crore has been set aside around 60 per cent of the supplementary budget for a single project — the 348 km Samajwadi Poorvanchal expressway. The foundation stone of which will be laid by the CM today. Notably, the state government had earlier allocated Rs 1,500 crore to acquire land for the expressway. About 85 per cent of the supplementary budget has been allocated for different road projects in urban and rural areas. With elections round the corner, Rs 100 crore has been allocated for publicity work by Information Department and Rs 1 crore for promoting social outfits working in the field of good governance. The government has also proposed additional funds of Rs 2.20 crore for building sports complex in Rampur, according to The Indian Express report.

CM Akhilesh had inaugurated and laid foundation stone of more than over 5,500 projects in about six hours, at 13 different places in Lucknow, a report by The Indian Express’ has said. On Tuesday, he began the day by inaugurating a new building at state capital’s Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. From there he also inaugurated a primary health centre in Anjrauli area of Faizabad district. At Mandi Parishad, he also inaugurated 3,180 projects worth Rs 1,932 crore, and also laid the foundation stone of 2,022 projects. The report said. Among these, were the works for villages under the Janeshwar Mishra Gram Yojna, newly-constructed kisan bazaars at Lucknow, Saifai, Jhansi, Kannauj among others, special mandis for Lalitpur, Jhansi, Hamirpur, Banda, Mahoba and Jalaun, nearly 183 link roads, and a 199 KW solar power plant at Naveen Mandi in Ghaziabad.

You may also like to watch

Later in the day, at the under-construction CG City, the chief minister dedicated the Cancer Institute, IT City and Amul plant for the public, laid the foundation stone of a new headquarters building for Sambhal district, a new building for Allahabad State University and state medical colleges in Bijnore and Chandauli. He also laid the foundation stone of Shaan-e-Awadh, a project worth Rs 500 crore, to be developed as a commercial centre with different facilities near Gomtinagar Extension. For the health sector, the chief minister inaugurated nearly 80 different projects worth Rs 390 crore, including a OPD building of Balrampur Hospital, four maternity wings of 100 beds each, 11 community health centres and 23 maternity wings of 30 beds each across the state.

Yadav began his inauguration spree with opening of the Agra-Lucknow Expressway on November 21. It made a big splash with fighter jets landing on the expressway. But, the expressway is yet to be opened for traffic as a lot of work is still to be done. Similar is the state of the much-publicised Lucknow Metro project. Though work is going on at a fast pace, it will be months before the metro’s doors can be thrown open to the public. However, this did not prevent the Chief Minister, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and others to go ahead with its inauguration earlier this month.