The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has launched efforts to revive the Jewar airport project in Greater Noida, which was shot down by the previous UPA government at the Centre.
Two Uttar Pradesh ministers, Siddharth Nath Singh and Nand Gopal Gupta, met Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha here today to discuss various proposals, including the one related to the Jewar airport.
"It (the project) was a part of our Sankalp Patra (poll manifesto). The meeting with the Union minister was good. He will now meet the chief minister in Lucknow on June 14 to take the talks forward," Singh later told reporters.
He said with a 100-million footfall, expected in the next few years, the IGI airport in the national capital would become heavily crowded. "Thus, the need of another airport would be felt. We are trying to revive the Jewar airport project, but nothing is final so far," he added.
The minister said nearly 80 per cent of transportation in Uttar Pradesh was dependent on the road network and it was necessary to boost regional air connectivity for industrial development.
"There are two good airports at Lucknow and Varanasi in the state. The connectivity between these two and the airports at Allahabad, Gorakhpur and Bareilly is being discussed. Besides, plans to develop the one at Kushinagar as a truly international airport are also on the anvil," he said.
The state government was also working on a "spiritual circuit" of 'Ganga Darshan' and planning to launch a helicopter service between Varanasi and Allahabad for the purpose. Also, a "Buddhist circuit" connecting Kushinagar, Sarnath and the other major Buddhist places in the state through flight services was being mooted, said Singh.
It was also working on an ambitious campaign in eastern UP to eradicate Japanese Encephalitis which killed scores of children in the districts there, he added.
"We are running a campaign to vaccinate 90 lakh children in 38 districts by June 11. Till yesterday, over 62 lakh were vaccinated. All the districts, except four, will achieve the targets by the deadline," said Singh, who holds the Health portfolio.
Describing the recent incidents involving violence in Saharanpur as "unfortunate", he said the condition of law- and-order in Uttar Pradesh was "dilapidated" and the Adityanath government was working to improve it.
"We are bringing changes at the lower level, including at the police stations. We are taking action against those involved in any criminal incident, including our own partymen," said the BJP leader.
Singh, who is also the spokesperson of the UP government, said doubling of farmers' income was one of its priorities and in this regard, a model of "land-pooling", to consolidate the smaller land-holdings, was being worked upon to encourage "technological investments".
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