PM Modi to launch projects worth ₹60,000 crore in UP

The projects will be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday at a ceremony which is being held to implement 80 of the 1,045 memorandums of understanding (MoUs) signed at the Uttar Pradesh Investors’ Summit organised earlier this year.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch projects worth ₹60,000 crore at the ground-breaking ceremony in Lucknow on Sunday, sending out the message that the Yogi Adityanath government is working hard to develop the state and create new job avenues in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The Yogi Adityanath government is keen on sending out the message that it is working hard to bring about development and create new job avenues in the state in the run-up to the 2019 general election. (Mohd Muqeed/HT File Photo)

Modi will be in Lucknow through July 28 and 29.

This ceremony, the first yet by the state government, will be held to implement 80 of the 1,045 memorandums of understanding (MoUs) signed at the Uttar Pradesh Investors’ Summit organised earlier this year.

The 1,045 MoUs envisage an investment of ₹4.28 lakh crore.

A number of policies have already been formulated or altered to pave the way for more investment. With a new law being proposed to fast-track clearances through a single- window system, more such ground-breaking ceremonies are expected in the coming months.

“We are in the process of implementing more MoUs, and another ground-breaking ceremony may be organised soon,” said chief secretary Anoop Chandra Pandey.

Besides Modi, who will be visiting the state for the fifth time this month, the event is expected to be attended by a number of leading industrialists such as Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla and Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani.

Arrangements have also been made for the live telecast of the ceremony at all the district headquarters. Ministers have been asked to be present in the districts under their charge, and MPs and MLAs have also been instructed to attend district-level programmes along with local industry leaders.

The BJP is trying to draw all the political mileage it can out of the ground-breaking ceremony. BJP flags have come up along with government hoardings on the road to the Indira Gandhi Pratisthan, the venue of the ceremony.

The opposition, however, has expressed its doubts in this regard. A Samajwadi Party spokesperson said the BJP was misleading the people, and contended that the Yogi regime has done little on the ground through its two-year rule other than inaugurating projects taken up by the former government.

A Congress spokesman said the BJP government’s claims about investment were eclipsed by the “deteriorating law-and-order situation” in the state.

Ahead of the ground-breaking ceremony, the Prime Minister will attend the concluding session of the two-day ‘Transforming Urban Landscape’ convention in the state capital on Saturday. The event will mark the third anniversary of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban); the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation of Urban Transfornation (AMRUT); and the Smart Cities Mission.

He will also inaugurate and lay foundation stones for 99 projects worth ₹3,897 crore on the occasion.