Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav along with UP Governor Ram Naik and Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav at a Roza Iftar party at Raj Bhawan in Lucknow on Friday. (PTI)
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today said that the first phase of the Lucknow Metro will be operational before the next Assembly Elections in the state falling in 2017.
Speaking at a function of Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation (LMRC) in the capital city, Mr Yadav said "The work on Metro project in the parliamentary constituency of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is going on at a high speed and the process for Metro in the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also underway."
He said that the state was fortunate for the number of metro projects in process and said that besides Lucknow, other cities like Varanasi, Kanpur, Agra and Meerut will also have metros.
No other states adjoining Uttar Pradesh have such a proposal, he said.
Unveiling the uniform for LMRC staff designed by NIFT, Rae Bareli, Mr Yadav also took credit for speeding up the project claiming that the Lucknow Metro will take half the time of what Jaipur Metro took.
On the occasion, he tied the knot of a tie of the uniform over his kurta and asked diapasons to wear the tie for the inaugural run next year.
Also present at the function, state Health Minister Ahmed Hasan praised Mr Yadav for making the functioning of health department transparent through digital records, which helped in transfers of which 500 clerks of the department although all records were burnt in a massive fire.
Akhilesh Yadav also spoke of the Memorandum of Understanding or MoU signed between the state government and Smile Parks Industries Limited for setting up 25 food and agriculture parks in rural areas in the next five years. An investment of Rs 3,125 crore would be made in the food parks, he added.