Lucknow: On the occasion of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar's 126th birth anniversary on Friday, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath made another major announcement of his government, which is to provide 24X7 electricity to all.
The chief minister has decided to implement this ambitious power scheme of the central government in view of the frequent power cuts in some areas of the state.
The state government has signed a MoU with the Centre here today in this regard in the presence of Adityanath and MoS (independent charge) Power Piyush Goyal.
The announcement comes as the BJP's week-long campaign to popularise digital payment gateway BHIMm named after Ambedkar, culminates on Friday.
The UP government has also directed all government schools to hold sessions for students on the life of Ambedkar.
The chief minister also pitched for digital payments to eliminate corruption and mafia, saying all government contracts will awarded through e-tendering.
"All the contracts will be awarded through e-tendering. This will remove the mafia and criminal elements from the contract chain, as these elements do not want transparency.
The quality of these contracts was very bad and there were no DPRs (detailed project reports)," the chief minister said.
It was due to these factors that there were cost escalations for projects, delays in completion, besides inconvnience to the public, he said.
"The UP government is committed to keep these elements (mafia) away from the contracts," Adityanath said.
The Uttar Pradesh chief minister also lavished praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying that before Modi took over, people had "no faith in their representatives".
"But after PM Modi assumed office, an atmosphere of trust has increased in the country," he said.
Adityanath reiterated that by November 2018, all the villages and households in the state will get electricity supply.
"Earlier damaged transformers languished for 3-4 months awaiting repair. But now the government has instructed the energy department to ensure that damaged transformers in rural areas are repaired in 48 hour, while those in urban areas are repaired in 24 hours," the CM said.
On Thursday, the chief minister had flagged off a new ambulance service equipped with life-saving technology.
Addressing a function to mark the occasion, he said the Centre always wanted to give funds for such activities but his predecessor never showed any interest.
He said the previous government feared the “credit” would go to BJP if it implements such projects with help of central funds.
"What message does it send," he asked?
