Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath completed one year in office on Monday. He chose the occasion to announce a farmer-friendly move and also launched a web portal to strengthen his ongoing fight against corruption. The two moves, along with other announcements, were peppered with an attack on the previous government dubbed as the ‘goonda’ and ‘jungle raj’ by him.

At a colourful function held at the Lok Bhawan here to mark the occasion, the CM said that farmers would no longer have to pay royalty on mud. (Unke liye mitti royalty free hogi).

“There will be no checking on the count and if any policeman or official was found harassing the farmers then severe punishment would be meted out to the harassers.” Yogi added he was willing to extend this benefit to the brick kiln owners too, provided they lowered the price of the bricks.

The CM launched an anti-corruption web portal ‘Jansunwai’. Any individual could upload an audio or video of a corrupt act. If found authentic and correct, immediate and severe punishment would be meted out to the guilty. The identity of the uploader or complainer would be kept a secret, he added.

Maintaining that his government was committed to the welfare of all and was accordingly working for all sections and strata of society, Yogi Adityanath said in the next one year, his government will provide 4 lakh jobs in 64 state government departments. “Utmost transparency will be maintained in the selection process,” the CM said.

He spoke about the recently held UP Investors summit and how earlier the industrialists shied from coming to UP. “But things have changed .The February 21-22 summit mopped up investments to the tune of Rs 4.68-lakh crores. Of this implementation of MoUs worth Rs 25,000 crores will begin soon,” he added.

Reciting a few lines from a poem of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the CM said his entire team was committed to the welfare and uplift of Uttar Pradesh. He spoke of the upcoming metro projects in Kanpur, Agra and Meerut and the near completion of metros in Noida and Greater Noida.

The Purvanchal Expressway and the Meerut-Delhi Expressway were also mentioned by him. He spoke of the 600 megawatt plant to come up at the Panki power station and which would be commissioned in the next 35 months.

Referring to the Kumbh mela slated for next year, Yogi Adityanath said a multimedia digital Kumbh museum will come up in Allahabad just as a Ram museum is slated for Ayodhya. While recounting all that his government had done during its one-year in office, the CM said the previous regime did not have health, education, employment, development etc on its agenda. It was the time of the ‘goonda’ and ‘jungle raj’ and where anarchy was at its peak. The politics pursued was one of ‘pariwarwad’, nepotism, caste, creed and religion.

When his government assumed charge, it not only had to deal with these factors but also an empty treasury, the CM added.

Yogi, who was accompanied by governor Ram Naik, (in the capacity of chief guest), his two deputies Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dr Dinesh Sharma released a booklet “Ek saal, Nai Misaal’, listing the achievements of his government. Also present were his cabinet colleagues, MLAs and other functionaries.

There was much colour and music all around in the Lok Bhawan to mark the occasion.