 "voting, elections, polls")
After a political row over its mega outreach campaign to highlight central schemes, the government on Thursday said the Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra scheduled for launch on November 15 will skip the five poll-bound states.
In an informal interaction with reporters here, Information and Broadcasting Secretary Apurva Chandra said a decision has been taken to drop the word 'rath' to refer to the vehicles publicising government schemes across 2.55 lakh gram panchayats and nearly 18,000 locations in urban areas.
"There is no plan to start the 'Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra' in election-bound states where the model code of conduct is in place. In poll-bound states the yatra will start when the model code of conduct is lifted," Chandra said.
"Henceforth, we will not use the word 'rath' for the Information, Education and Communication (IEC) vans," Chandra said, dismissing criticism that government officials were being drafted for a political campaign.
Assembly polls in five states -- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Mizoram -- have been announced. Voting will take place in the states on different dates in November and the results will be announced on December 3.
Chandra said the Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra (VBSY), which will be flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Khunti in Jharkhand, is purely a government programme and it would be incorrect to attribute political motives to it.
"I disagree with the criticism that government officers are doing political work," Chandra said, asserting that the suggestion for the campaign to ensure saturation coverage of government schemes was made during a meeting of secretaries in Dharamsala in June last year.
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The yatra will be flagged off on November 15, the birth anniversary of freedom fighter Birsa Munda which is celebrated as Janajatiya Gaurav Divas. It will conclude on the eve of Republic Day on January 25.
The yatra will be launched in urban areas a week later.
A question and answer session with the prime minister through video conferencing is also planned during the yatra.
The campaign is intended to reach out to the vulnerable people who are eligible for benefits under various government schemes but were yet to receive the same.
The IEC vans will be branded with different government schemes such as kisan credit card, rural housing scheme, Ujjwala scheme, PM Svanidhi yojana among others.
As part of the Yatra, more than 2,500 mobile performing vans and over 200 mobile theatre vans will be pressed into service to cover nearly 2.55 lakh Gram panchayats and clusters in all cities and towns of India.
The outreach programme has been conceptualised on the 'whole of government approach' with the Ministry of Agriculture being the nodal ministry for the rural campaign and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting spearheading the urban campaign.
The ground event will feature screening of developmental videos, skits on natural farming by local talent based on the 'Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke' theme, sharing of success stories by beneficiaries like Meri Kahani Meri Zubani' in the language of the region.
In the rural areas, the yatra will also demonstrate the use of drones in farming, the IEC vans will also be enabled with Wi-Fi hotspot to let people download relevant apps on their mobile phones.
In urban areas, the campaign will be carried out through specially curated mobile theatre vans, that will screen popular films, documentaries, animation programmes which will be interspersed with developmental messaging.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
