Adityanath: Rs 10-lakh aid for kin of mediapersons who died of Covid

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath with Director (Information) Shishir after inaugurating the new building of the state Information Department, in Lucknow on Friday. (Express Photo)

CHIEF MINISTER Yogi Adityanath on Friday announced health insurance for mediapersons for medical treatment of up to Rs 5 lakh, apart from Rs 10 lakh as financial assistance for dependents of mediapersons who die of Covid-19.

Adityanath was speaking after inaugurating the newly constructed information department building named ‘Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhaya Suchna Parisar.’

Claiming that the new building would be equipped with modern communication tools, especially for the digital platform, Adityanath said discussion was an important tool in a democracy to find solutions to major problems and added that the media was a strong medium for the same.

Asking officials to work for “wide publicity of government welfare schemes” and act as a link between the public and the government, the CM also urged them to make efforts towards branding of local produce, especially under the ‘one district, one product’ scheme. He said this scheme can become the anchor for the AatmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan. He asked officials to ensure proper display of the scheme on all government buildings.

Adityanath informed that while the old premises of the information department would be given for expansion of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Hospital in Lucknow, the land for the new building has been given by the state education department.

The CM also claimed that curbing of encephalitis in eastern Uttar Pradesh was a “success story for the entire world to take note of.”

He said that after the first death because of the disease in the state in 1977, it had spread to 38 districts by 1998. He claimed that after Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched in 2014, a large number of toilets were constructed in Gorakhpur region, bringing down the number of deaths because of encephalitis drastically.

Adityanath while 641 deaths had taken place at BRD Medical College in 2014, only seven deaths have occurred in 2020 so far due to encephalitis. The CM also claimed that the efforts to control encephalitis also helped greatly during the Covid-19 pandemic, pointing out that Covid positivity rate is at its lowest and the recovery rate was maximum in Uttar Pradesh.

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