Niti Aayog imposes strict deadlines on UP to improve the state infrastructure
In order to finish these uphill tasks, the CM has created eight groups of secretaries to keep a check on the targets
The Centre’s think tank Niti Aayog has set strict deadlines for Uttar Pradesh government for education, health and rural development. This was after the think tank officials reviewed the state's infrastructure in May, the Economic Times reported.
The Niti Aayog has imposed the deadlines based on eight parameters. Education, health and rural development are three of these parameters. The move intends to lift the largest and most populous state from the clasps of ‘underdevelopment’.
The sudden push is also seen coming after death of 49 infants in 30 days in Farrukhabad district last month and the death toll reached to 120 in Gorakhpur in 10 days.
The deadlines ranging from three months to five years include, running government hospitals on public-private partnership by the end of the year, eliminating leprosy by 2018, and measles by 2020, running school enrollment campaigns, covering 10 lakh hectares under micro-irrigation by March 2018 and building 12 lakh houses in villages under the PM Awas Yojana by 2019.
The 25-page ‘Action Plan for Uttar Pradesh’ has also fixed December 2017 deadline for the state to get all the clearances for the Ken-Betwa interlinking rivers project. The project should start in the current financial year, the report added.
This project is set to be completed in six-seven years and when completed, will provide irrigation coverage to 6.36 lakh hectares of Bundelkhand in the state and neighboring state Madhya Pradesh. An amount of Rs 16,000 crore was earlier donated to Ken-Betwa River interlinking project. The ambitious project might also provide drinking water to about 60% (13 lakh) of the state's current population of 223 million (according to 2011 census).
In order to finish these uphill tasks, the CM has created eight groups of secretaries to keep a check on the targets. Some of the key targets with a one-year deadline are — reducing high maternal mortality rate, digital registration of pregnancy, providing skills training to 10,000 birth attendants, digital payments of health subsidies and incentives through Aadhaar. Along with this, the district hospitals in UP are said to be upgraded to medical colleges in the next three years.
“If India has to move forward, UP has to perform,” Kant, Niti Aayog CEO was quoted as saying.
The plan also says that UP should become an autonomous entity within six months for a big drug procurement and distribution system for good quality medicines to be accessible.
The state also needs to utilise the unspent balance of Rs 330 crores at the 2016-17 year end for drinking supply works and prioritise ‘Har Ghar Jal’ to achieve its goal of 100% water coverage.
