LUCKNOW: Chief minister Yogi Adityanath issued appointment letters to over 1,400 junior engineers in the irrigation department on Thursday, saying that it was for the first time that such a high level of recruitments had taken place in an absolutely transparent manner.
The chief minister said that in the past three years, the irrigation department had achieved major milestones in Uttar Pradesh — from completing pending irrigation projects like Ban Sagar to ensuring relief for citizens during floods.
Speaking about his government’s commitment to ensuring jobs for everyone, to achieve which it was going to launch Mission Rozgar after Diwali, Yogi said the selection of 1,438 junior engineers for the irrigation and water resources department had been carried out by the Lok Sewa Ayog. The CM not only handed appointment letters to a few of the newly appointed JEs, but also interacted with the others via video conferencing and spoke to 10 of them, one each from Sitapur, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Jhasi, Meerut, Kanpur, Prayagraj, Bareilly, Rampur and Saharanpur.
During his interaction, Yogi asked the new recruits whether they had been required to pay anyone during the selection process, get recommendation from someone or faced any kind of bias. He said that just like their selection they too should work in a transparent and upright way.
The CM referred to the appointment procedures under previous governments, saying that only money and sifarish (recommendation) worked earlier to get people jobs.
“Last year, the Lok Sewa Ayog had selected 543 assistant engineers. The unbiased and transparent selection of engineers by the irrigation department is an example for other departments,” he said.
Speaking about the role of the Jal Shakti department in preventing and managing floods and also ensuring irrigation facilities for farmers, Yogi said that it had great success in the past three years. “In the first year of BJP’s government in UP, 38 districts were affected by flood which resulted in widespread destruction and loss of lives. Since then, there has been significant improvement in the situation. Rivers have been channelized to control floods and irrigation projects pending for years were completed,” he said.
The CM spoke about the Ban Sagar project in Mirzapur which was inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi in 2018. The project had received approval in 1973 and work was started in 1978 by the then PM Morarji Desai but even after crores of rupees were spent on it, the project remained pending, he said, adding that it was the BJP government that had it completed to benefit lakhs of farmers. The government is also working towards completing other pending projects like the Saryu Nahar project, Madhya Ganga project and Arjun project, he said.