From Pradeep Kapoor
LUCKNOW: Young and socialist chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is establishing a dialogue with different sections of society and working to create a climate for investment in Uttar Pradesh.
In order to show the people that he was an ordinary person like others he scaled down his own security and reduced the number of vehicles from his motorcade of 50 inherited from Mayawati to only four or five.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav opened the door of his official residence at Kalidash Marg to the public and lifted the barricade established by the previous government.
During the regime of Mayawati the barricade had been set up on the both sides of road and huge amount of police force had been deployed to prevent anybody visit the highly sanitized zone.
Ever since the Chief Minister shifted to his official residence, he is getting huge crowd everyday to meet him and apprise their problems.
Akhilesh Yadav has also revived holding of Janata durbar once in week when anybody and everyone would be welcomed to meet the chief minister and submit him their petitions and discuss their problems. The Janata durbar gives the chief minister an opportunity to interact with people directly.
It would be worth mentioning here that Mayawati who avoided direct contact with masses had stopped holding the Janata durbar during her regime.
Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had also fixed the schedule to meet different sections of society every week besides ministers, MPs and MLAs.
There was a general complaint against Mayawati that she met only very few ministers and never met any MP or MLA during her regime. She could not get any feedback from her ministers, MPs or MLAs and party workers.
Significantly enough chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has started attending his office in UP Secretariat. He comes to the office unannounced and himself presses the button for lift like other ordinary people.
Mayawati never attended her office in the secretariat as she used to operate from her residence. She would only come to her office to attend the cabinet meeting which itself was rare event as she preferred cabinet meeting by rotation where signatures of the ministers are obtained from their residences.
Akhilesh Yadav has issued the instructions that vehicular traffic should never be stopped for him. Curfew like condition was created when Mayawati used to come out of her residence. All roads were washed twice and all vehicles were lifted from the roads and nobody was allowed to move on pavements and even policeman were asked to look other side to avoid any direct contact with Mayawati.
The young chief minister has sent the good message in the state by ensuring uninterrupted power supply in all districts including villages in the evening and night. People are happy with continuous power supply.
In order to create better climate, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has taken the initiative to invite central ministers for discussion. First in this direction was the visit of Mr Jairam Ramesh.
Union minister for environment and rural development Jairam Ramesh was very happy and positive in his approach and said that he was happy to meet the new chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and both agreed to meet at least once in every two months to discuss various development projects
Shocked by the huge corruption in the implementation of MNREGA, Mr. Ramesh asked the UP chief minister to recommend CBI probe in three districts – Gonda, Balrampur and Sonbhadra.
Mr. Ramesh charged previous Mayawati government for callous attitude towards MNREGA and lack of coordination with central government.
Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav also held meeting with Shiv Nadar, founder and chairman of HCL to turn Uttar Pradesh into an information technology hub.
Akhilesh Yadav had two hour brain storming session with the HCL chairman in the presence of ministers and senior bureaucrats to create an environment for industrial development of the state. (IPA)
