lucknow

Updated: Dec 17, 2018 08:33 IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday announced a major development push for Rae Bareli, the Lok Sabha constituency of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

The PM announced setting up of a rail industrial park, a medical college and a hospital and dedicated to the people a crucial road highway which would link Rae Bareli to Banda.

Modi said the rail industrial park would be a joint project of the railway ministry and the Uttar Pradesh government. He also dedicated the 133 kilometre long National Highway 232 project worth Rs 550 crore connecting Rae Bareli to Banda.

The PM announced plans to develop Rae Bareli as a global hub of rail coach manufacturing.

He said soon the wagons of all metro trains, semi-high speed trains and aluminium bogies would also be manufactured here.

“Over the next few years, the capacity of the plant will be raised to 3,000 rail coaches. I would still want the railway ministry to increase the manufacturing capacity to 5,000 coaches. The speed with which work is happening now will make Rae Bareli a global hub of rail coach manufacturing,” Modi said after launching the 900th rail coach manufactured in the rail coach factory in the last one year.

The rail coach factory was sanctioned by the then UPA government in 2007 during the regime of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh.

The Congress had briefly accused the BSP government of playing politics over the factory that was finally inaugurated by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

Modi, however, accused the Congress of not paying enough attention to the project.

“During Congress rule, the factory was largely used for painting and tightening the screws of wagons that were brought here from elsewhere. Before 2014, the factory made purchases worth only Rs 1 crore from local vendors but under our government this purchase has been increased to Rs 125 crore. As the production capacity has increased, locals will benefit even more. Small and medium scale businessmen will benefit too,” Modi said.

The PM said under the previous government an announcement was made to employ 5,000 locals but the sanction was given to only half the number.

“After coming to power in 2014 we also found that no fresh appointment had been made in this factory. Today, about 2,000 employees are working here. Earlier, there were about 200 ad hoc employees which has gone up to 1,500 now,” he said.

Railway minister Piyush Goyal announced that doubling of rail line from Amethi to Jais would be completed by March 2019 while the next phase of the project from Jais to Rae Bareli would be over by December next year.

Goyal said the investment in railways in Uttar Pradesh, which was about Rs 5,500 crore under the Congress, had been increased to Rs 26,000 crore by the BJP government.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath informed the Prime Minister that over 23,000 houses had been built for the poor in Rae Bareli.

UP BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak said, “We have always believed in drawing a bigger line. People will see politics in these announcements but for us it is an extension of PM Modi’s call for ‘Sabka saath, sabka vikas’ and in keeping with his vision of running a government that caters to all 125 crore people of the country.”