Sinha takes a dig at UP CM's 'tall claims' over metro project

Seeking to puncture the "tall claims" of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Lucknow metro project, Union Minister Manoj Sinha today said 70 per cent of the funds for the project was given by the Centre.
"He is claiming that he is making the Lucknow metro project ... But 70 per cent funds for it have been provided by the Centre," the MoS Railway said here.
"He is taking great pride on the expressway project...Some 39 projects of the same kind have been sanctioned for Uttar Pradesh," Sinha said.
Akhilesh Yadav had said that the first phase of the Lucknow Metro will be operational before the next Assembly Elections in the state falling in 2017.

"The work on Metro project in the parliamentary constituency of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is going on at a high speed and the process for Metro in the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also underway," he had said.
The Chief Minister said the state was fortunate for the number of metro projects in process and that besides Lucknow, other cities like Varanasi, Kanpur, Agra and Meerut will also have metros.

No other states adjoining Uttar Pradesh have such a proposal, he had said.
The Union minister said the Deen Dayal electrification scheme, which the SP ministers were claiming to be their own, also had 75 per cent investment from the Centre.

Sinha, who also holds the independent portfolio of telecommunication, said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted to end the digital gap between cities and villages.
He said all 596 villages of Mau would be connected through optical fibre by January 2017.