UP law & order a model for rest of country, image of state transformed in last 5 yrs: CM

The Chief Minister was addressing a gathering of police personnel in Lucknow while virtually inaugurating 144 residential/non-residential buildings — including hostels, barracks, police stations and police posts — built at Rs 260 crore in 36 districts.

“Five years ago, UP’s image was of a BIMARU (a resemblance to a Hindi word ‘bimar’ meaning ‘sick’) state, where there was no vision for development, and the reason was the poor law and order situation. Owing to frequent riots, people’s perception about UP was very bad and no one felt safe in the state,” said the CM.

Adityanath said after taking oath as the CM on March 19, 2017, the first thing he did was an inspection of the Home Department on March 20 and found “mismanagement”. The CM said that he was told that there was a shortage of 1.5 lakh police personnel, 54 companies of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) had been disbanded and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) was not created. The CM said that his government adopted a transparent recruitment system in the state police and more than 1.62 lakh recruitment had so far been done successfully. “We worked as a team. And, the result is, today the law and order situation in UP has become a model for the country,” said the CM.

“Generally, governments are cornered for inefficient functioning of police, but it happened for the first time in the history of the country when the (efficient) law and order situation became an issue in the last Assembly elections in the state and it garnered the votes of ‘aadhi abaadi’ (women) in favour of the ruling party,” he said. The CM claimed that every industrialist in the country and world wants to invest in UP.

Adityanath further said that technology was necessary for maintaining the law and order situation efficiently, but one should not become a captive of technology. The CM said there was no shortage of police force as their capacity had been doubled and facilities increased.

“Had anyone imagined that mikes (loudspeakers) would be removed from religious places without any dispute? Had anyone believed that no religious programmes would be held on the roads? It also became possible. It has changed UP’s image,” said the CM. However, the CM added that the biggest challenge that the young generation had been facing was drug addiction, and the police would have to launch a massive drive against drug peddlers.