Lucknow: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said development should be kept above politics and hailed the UP government for helping in acquiring land for the 94-km-long outer ring road in his parliamentary constituency – Lucknow.
“Development should not be weighed on the scale of politics,” Singh said while laying the foundation stone of the ring road along with Union Minister for Road and Transport Nitin Gadkari here.
The Union Minister also acknowledged the help of state government in acquiring land for the outer ring road to be built at a cost of Rs 5,218 crore.
Stressing on the need for infrastructure and road network, Singh said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set the target of taking the GDP to double digits which was possible only by improving the infrastructure.
The GDP was 8.4 per cent during Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime, he said.
Singh said as the surface Transport Minister in the Vajpayee government, he had made the ambitious plan of linking national highways.
Gadkari announced the construction of seven flyovers worth Rs 1,000 crore for Lucknow.
“The previous UPA government had laid 2-km road per day and today 22 km road is being laid by the NDA government and the target is to raise it to 42 km per day,” Gadkari said.
He said before completion of the Modi government’s term, road worth Rs 2 lakh crore will be built in Uttar Pradesh.
Meanwhile, BSP supremo Mayawati questioned the need for laying the foundation stone of the ring road in such a hurry and termed it as “election propaganda”.
“What is the hurry to lay the foundation stone of the ring road…even the project director of NHAI, P Shankar has said that it will take six months to complete the tendering process and the work will start only after that,” she said in a press release.
Mayawati said such “election propaganda” had been often played by the Congress governments and now the same is being done by the Modi government.
“Big ads have been put in newspapers of 94-km-long …Is it not an election gimmick to gain cheap publicity before the Assembly elections?” she asked.