By Vivek Tripathi

Lucknow, Nov 18 (IANS): Uttar Pradesh Additional Chief Secretary Navneet Sehgal on Wednesday said that the agenda of the government of the day was as sacred as the Gita or the Ramayan for any bureaucrat.

Talking on the politicisation of the bureaucracy, the officer told IANS that he did not agree with such contention.

"The government agenda is sacred for any bureaucrat. We as bureaucrats have to implement this agenda with full transparency on the ground. It is also the basis of evaluation of our work. Britain too has such a system, and the Indian Constitution is much influenced by it," he pointed out.

He said that in this financial year, Rs 10 crore in loans had been extended to around 6,30,000 industrial units in Uttar Pradesh.

He said that a number of such units had started without any government help but were registered under the Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum. The state had registered nearly 8 lakh units, which generated jobs for around 30 lakh to 32 lakh people, Sehgal said while pointing out that the calculation was based on an average of four jobs in small units.

The officer said that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was constantly monitoring the industrial situation during the coronavirus pandemic.

"Working industrial concerns were facing problems, which were removed. We launched the Saathi app in coordination with banks. This has given confidence to MSME units. We ensured that units producing essentials did not stop functioning during the pandemic, including pharmaceuticals and export-oriented units," Sehgal added.

He said that Nivesh Mitra portal had helped establish MSMEs in the state, apart from ease-of-doing business initiative etc. He said that hand-holding of new units had also helped, adding that there were now 90 lakh industrial units in the state now, including around 8 lakh registered ones.

He said that when the pandemic struck, the state was not making even a single PPE kit, but this number at present was 50,000.

Sehgal said that memorandums of understanding have been inked with trade bodies like FICCI, CII, Laghu Udyog Bharati etc to help migrant labour. It had helped in the generation of around 25 lakh jobs mostly for migrant workers who had returned to Uttar Pradesh after the lockdown.

As for criticism that officials at the lowest level were not working properly, the officer said that the government had done good work in the last three and a half years and the same needed to be put before the public.

Sehgal said that the government was working on the plan to make public aware of the projects and works undertaken for public welfare all these years.