Lucknow: The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has decided to appoint ‘Lok Kalyan Mitras’, workers who will disseminate information among people about various development programmes of the government.

Officials said that the workers will be paid a monthly salary of Rs 25,000 and they will be employed on an annual contract. The contracts will be renewed on the basis of performance, assessed by chief minister Yogi Adityanath himself.

The Uttar Pradesh government will hold a written exam to select 822 Lok Kalyan Mitras for each block across the state. The decision was taken after a cabinet meeting at Lok Bhawan in Lucknow on Tuesday.

The decision is likely to draw the ire of the opposition parties as it is being seen as a way to use government money for political campaign as these appointments will be in addition to the already existing bureaucratic machinery in districts that is responsible for implementation of government schemes.

Decisions on vacating the property of State Estates Department and easing the rules of air travel by MLAs were also taken.

“The cabinet has approved the rules related to eviction of people who have violated rules and have not vacated the properties of the State Estates Department. Under this, the state estates department can now evict any person who is living illegally in the government property,” spokesperson of UP Government, Shrikant Sharma said.

This government will now be able in evicting illegal occupants on the government properties like NGOs, political parties, social institutions, trusts, employee organizations, etc.

Easing the air travel rules for MLAs, the cabinet decided that the MLAs could now fly via Air India without prior MCQ. Earlier, the MLAs had to take prior permission for MCQ if they travelled by Air India.