NITI Aayog, Yogi govt to jointly prepare roadmap for development in UP

Plan aims at taking the state's growth to double digits

A joint working group comprising top functionaries of the NITI Aayog and Yogi Adityanath government will prepare a roadmap to ensure all-round development of Uttar Pradesh in the next 15 days.

"Niti Aayog vice-chairman Dr Arvind Panagariya has proposed the names of member Ramesh Chand and chief executive officer Amitabh Kant as members the joint working group," Adityanath told reporters after a meeting with NITI Aayog officials. The Chief Minister also recommended that habitations with populations between 250 and 499 be taken up for connectivity with all-weather roads.

Adityanath said that UP cabinet minister Sidhartha Nath Singh, the state chief secretary and principal secretary (planning) will be the three members in the joint working group from UP government's side.

He also suggested that the BPL survey be conducted once every five years. The Chief Minister has also asked for extension of the Bundelkhand package and special assistance in areas of the state where drinking water has been affected by arsenic and fluoride contamination.

Lauding the NITI Aayog, Adityanath said, "It is for the first time that NITI Aayog has gone to a state and interacted with the government and administration to evolve a solution.

The sensitivity which NITI Aayog has shown, I hope that the Aayog will guide us. The road to Samarth Bharat (Self-reliant India) goes through UP."

The plan would also aim to raise the state's growth rate and will be presented before the Aayog.

Our endeavour will be to take the growth rate of UP to double digits, Adityanath said.

NITI Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya while answering a question on waiver of crop loan by UP government said, "the decision was taken as a measure to relieve their (farmers') stress. However, now the mood has changed in UP.

And even the view of people both in India and abroad have changed towards UP."

Some of the presentations made by officials of NITI Aayog were on transforming UP, agricultural growth and development for economic transformation, ease of doing business and start up programme, an analysis of rural development, improving health outcomes, the challenge of malnutrition, education outcomes, drinking water and sanitation etc.