Yogi Adityanath – a calculative Mathematics teacher, a caring monk and a crafty politician all rolled into one – leads India’s largest and most populous state, UP. COVID 19 threw an unprecedented challenge to UP government to effectively fight this highly infectious decease in the most populous and one of the poorest states in India. Yogi led UP Government not only took the challenge head on but also turned the challenge into opportunity by creating conducive environment for suitable industrial units looking to relocate their manufacturing base out of China.
Let’s take a quick peek at Yogi’s COVID 19 strategy.
He started with his team formation & detailed planning on this COVID battle very early on. Let’s highlight a few milestones in UP’s COVID fight and the planning behind the success story of UP, largest state of India
1. Yogi mentioned that considering population, demography & other conditions, he felt that situation was extremely vulnerable for a country like India. However, able and strong leadership of by our Prime Minister has guided the nation to fight this pandemic. He mentioned that if there is any success in UP, PM Modi should get the credit for his planning & visions.
2. He mentioned that UP is most populated state with Seven state boundaries. The situation was highly sensitive and the UP Government took this as a challenge. Strong and able guidance from the Central Government helped UP successfully overcome this hurdle. PM Modi started his planning from 1st March only. PM Modi asked the nation to avoid congregations during the Holi festival, considered as one of the biggest Hindu festivals and Holi was also celebrated at the PM residence without any fanfare. India got result of these early precautionary measures. After getting first case, UP Government stopped all educational Institutes first. Thereafter Malls, Theatre halls, multiplexes were closed one by one in a very short period of time.
3. UP faced the next big challengeon the day when lakhs of Migrant labours of UP, Bihar, Jharkhand & West Bengal were practically forced to quit Delhi suddenly and they took shelter at the UP-Delhi border. 16000 buses were arranged to transport them to their homes after proper screening all at the behest of the UP government.
4. Thereafter different Groups of Ministers were formed to tackle various dimensions of the problems. They were given separate changes for different area like small businesses, rural workers, farmers, food distribution, lockdown law & orders, revenue collection, community kitchen, Quarantine Centre establishment & Management, Non COVID Health issues, Internal Security, prevention of infections in police force & jails, banking Management, etc. to ensure their smooth livelihood.
5. UP Government ensured free foods for 18 crore poor people at free of cost. Not a single migrant labour from UP left as Government ensured adequate food & lodging facilities for them. 90% of them have resumed their duties already in a very hygienic manner.
6. When UP got first COVID patients, they didn’t have any lab, COVID Hospital, N 95 mask. UP produced sufficient amount of alcohol based sanitisers by using the alcohol produced from sugar mills. This ensured availability not only to UP but also to 28 other states. Today, UP has 28 PPE kit unit, 26 Labs. Today UP has the capacity of 10000 tests per day. UP built Hospital chains in last two months with total capacity of 78000 beds. 3400 out of total 6000 COVID patients have recovered till date in UP. All these milestones were achieved in spite of sudden entry of 400000 labours and Tablighi Jamaat incident.
7. 90% if initial cases of the state came from Tablighi Jamaat members. But quick and prompt action to isolate helped in spreading infection.
8. As far as return of Migrant labours are concerned, UP government took help from Rail Ministry to send them at their homes. Labours from Haryana & MP were sent by state Bus. Total 22 lakhs migrant labours of UP returned home from other states. They are initially taken to quarantine centres. 15 lakhs such people have been treated at the quarantine centres.
9. 75000 medical teams are working for screening purposes only across UP.
Some of the highlight of the Yogi Adityanath’ s Question Answer sessionare:
· Germany-based healthy footwear brand Von Wellx, will be shifting its entire shoe production of over three million pairs annually from China to Agra with an initial investment of INR110 crore. Road & other logistic facilities, cheap & efficient labour, transparent government policy are the key attractions for this investment. Some more will come in near future.
· Migrant labours are recovering much faster than other people due to their immunity. State will concentrate on their skilling, skill mapping. There will be one empowered commission to ensure employment of these labours as per their skillsets in their home state only. State will ensure social security like various insurances, for each labour so that such people get the much needed social security.
· State has already started various economic activities like Sugar production, construction of Expressway. However, all safety guidelines are being strictly followed at the same time.
· His government believes that full autonomy and independence of media. But UP government is taking strict action and serving notices to those who are spreading fake news. Appropriate administrative & judicial actions are being taken as per law.
· 22 lakhs of Migrant labour returned from various states. Instead of extending cooperation, the so called pro-poor politicians of those states, forced poor labours to evacuate their state by disconnecting their water & power. But UP Government took full care of their own sons of soil.
· He said UP Government is committed to bring to justice all criminals. UP became peaceful state due to proper enforcement of administrative & judicial power only.
· State reduced all non-essential expenditures.
· UP is a Water Resource rich state. Hence Agriculture is UP’s main focus. Cooperatives are being formed to ensure proper price for farmers. Rural banking is being streamlined to reach poor. State will educate the tailors who returned during COVID to make UP a garment industry hub like Vietnam & Bangladesh. Government reused the flowers of Kashi Biswanath Temple to manufacture flavoured Dhoops. UP ensured 29% increase in exports from rural economy in the last one years. This export numbers are set to go north.
· He said, both RAM & ROTI are important to him. UP COVID condition is better than West Bengal. The UP Government has ensured ROTI for all poor due to blessing of Lord Sri Ram Chandra only.
· He again repeated that Skill Development, Improvement, mapping for Social security & employment of Labours will remain his priority. Before leaving state, all labourers will have to register themselves for their own benefits
Koutilya