‘UP’s per capita income rose due to our efforts’

LUCKNOW: Accusing the Opposition parties of only dreaming, chief minister Yogi Adityanath said that his government not just saw dreams but also realised them. In his over two-hour address in the Vidhan Parishad on Thursday, the CM said that “some would claim that they too dreamed about making the Ganga Expressway”, except it was his government which was finally building it.Work on the expressway, conceptualised when BSP chief Mayawati was UP CM, is expected to start this year. “Lots of people dream but not everyone can realise these dreams. Our government has, however, turned its dreams into reality,” he said, objecting to Samajwadi Party members giving credit for the Purvanchal Expressway to Akhilesh Yadav , saying that the SP government had not even acquired land for it.“As per rules, 90% land should be in one’s possession before awarding the tender. If SP had land, why didn’t it start work on it in 2016? That is because SP had not acquired even 50% of the land. When we came to power, we cancelled the tender, acquired 96% land for the project by March 2018 and then issued fresh tenders,” the CM said.Detailing the state’s per capita income to show the wide disparity between income levels before his government came to power, the CM said that Noida had a per capita income of Rs 6.17 lakh, the highest in the state, against the lowest of Rs 3,200 in Balrampur.The average, he said, had gone up from Rs 42,268 before BJP came to power to Rs 64,330 now. “UP’s per capita income was much higher than the national average in the 1950s, but steadily fell to below the national average. In 2017 it finally rose above the national average again thanks to the efforts by our government,” the CM said.Holding the Opposition guilty for the stray cattle menace, Yogi said cattle had not escaped from the government dairies. “Aap jaise log, jo doodh peene ke shaukeen hein, doodh pei kar ke sadak pe chhodne ka kaam bhi aap logon ne kiya hai (People like you who like drinking milk, you drink milk and then leave the cattle on the roads),” he said, adding that before BJP rule, cows were being butchered mercilessly in illegal slaughterhouses.