Yogi launches mega campaign to repair bridges on canals
LUCKNOW Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday launched a mega campaign to repair over 25,000 dilapidated bridges and culverts on canals, many of them 100-150 years old, in the state and instructed the department of irrigation and water resources to complete this work in the next 100 days, said a government statement.
“For the first time in the history of the state, the restoration work of damaged bridges and culverts on canals in the entire state is being taken up as a mega campaign,” the chief minister announced.
He was addressing people’s representatives and officials of all the districts concerned, through the virtual medium, in a programme organised at his official residence. About 70,000 bridge-culverts had been constructed on the canals in the state, out of which about half were in a dilapidated condition, he added.
Under the mega campaign, 25,050 damaged bridges and culverts located on canals in all districts of the state will be ren- ovated or rebuilt. The task includes the new construction or rebuilding of 3,508 culverts as well. He said financial arrangements had been ensured for this campaign.
The chief minister said the main canal systems in Uttar Pradesh were more than 100 years old. The Eastern Yamuna Canal System was about 190 years old, Upper Ganga Canal System 166 years, Lower Ganga Canal System 142 years, Betwa and Ken Canal System 135 years, Dhasan Canal System 113 years and the Sharda Canal System had completed 92 years.
Jal Shakti minister Mahendra Singh, while discussing the importance of irrigation for agriculture, thanked the chief minister for the bridge-culvert renovation work. The departmental minister said that in order to make the farmers of the state self-sufficient in agricultural production, 74,659-kilometre-long canals and 34,401 tubewells had been constructed by the department of irrigation and water resources, thereby creating a capacity of 1.20 crore lakh hectares of irrigation.
Niti Aayog has formulated a draft national policy on migrant workers. According to a report in The Indian Express, the policy proposes instituting mechanisms to “enable voting” for migrant workers because their political inclusion will enhance political accountability. It also suggests setting up inter-state coordination mechanisms between states to facilitate migrant movement; making migrant wings a part of labour departments; and getting source states and destination states to work with each other.
The migrant crisis, triggered by the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the pandemic, saw, according to official figures, over 10 million migrant workers returning home. The pandemic also revealed the fact that the State doesn’t have adequate data about this large pool of citizens. This was astonishing since migration has been an integral component of the political economy, and the presence of migrant workers routinely places additional demands on infrastructure in destination towns and cities. The Niti Aayog draft has excellent workable ideas. A key issue is creating political incentives — the fact that migrants are spread out, and may not end up voting in either source or destination states, means that they have often been underestimated as a political constituency. Enabling their political voice will be key to making them effective stakeholders and forcing the system to take their interests on board. Many migrant workers have started going back to their jobs, but this issue must not be relegated to the margins. It’s time migrant workers get the respect, protection and rights they are entitled to as citizens.
RANCHI: Advocating a separate religious code for tribal people in the country, Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren has underlined that they were never Hindus by faith and the Centre needs to provide a separate column for indigenous people in the upcoming Census. The remarks drew a sharp response from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which accused Soren of “speaking the language of the Vatican”.
Soren was speaking on Saturday at the India Conference at Harvard 2021, organised by students of Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. Replying to a specific question by the moderator whether tribals were not Hindus, Soren said, “There is no confusion on it. Tribal was never a Hindu, nor are they Hindus now. Tribals are worshippers of nature and have a separate set of customs and practices. And that is the reason why they are classified as tribals and indigenous people.”
Prior to this, the chief minister, who is also the JMM working president, underlined that the Centre should provide the tribals a distinct column to mark their religion in the upcoming national Census.
The Jharkhand assembly in November last year had unanimously adopted a resolution demanding a Sarna Tribal Religious Code for tribal people in the Census.