Govt ensuring no burden on ordinary families and farmers due to West Asia crisis: PM Modi

Lucknow: Prime minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that the government was taking steps to ensure that there was no burden on the common peoples and farmers owing to the West Asia crisis.

Addressing a public meeting after inaugurating phase one of the Noida International Airport in Greater Noida, Modi said that there was a scarcity of petrol, diesel, gas and essential commodities in many countries because of the war.

‘’India is tackling the situation with the strength of the people…..developmental activities have not stopped in the crisis ....UP has got several projects in the past few weeks,’’ the prime minister said.

Modi attacked the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress for not taking any interest in the Noida International project when they were in power.

‘’Noida was ATM for the SP….the CM (Akhilesh Yadav) is scared of visiting Noida fearing that he will lose power….some people also tried to scare me……under the BJP government, Noida has emerged as a powerful engine of growth of UP,’’ he said adding that Jewar Airport was an fitting example of the ‘double engine’ work culture.

He said that this Airport would benefit the region including Agra, Aligarh, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Faridabad and other places.

Modi said that an airport was not merely a general facility but it also gives wings to development. ‘’The country had only 2014 before 2014 but now there are more than 160 airports,’’ he said.

The prime minister said that the government was trying to make sure that the air fare remained within the reach of the ordinary families and referred to the ‘Udan’ scheme saying that 1.60 crore people travelled under the scheme since it was launched.

He said that the ‘Udan’ Scheme was being further expanded and Rs.29 thousand crore had been sanctioned for the same. There was a plan to construct 100 new airports in small towns and 200 helipads.