PM Modi: Kisan Suryoday Yojana will be a milestone for farmers in Gujarat

Warning against wasting water, Modi urged farmers to follow the mantra of ‘per drop more crop’. “When farmers get electricity during daytime, we will also have to make efforts to conserve water. If people start thinking that they are getting electricity, and water can flow and they can sit back, Gujarat will be ruined. Water sources will run dry and life will become very difficult,” Modi said, adding the daytime electricity would help expansion of micro-irrigation coverage in the state.

Talking to the media after the event, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said the daytime power supply will lead to saving of water. “When farmers were getting electricity at night, they would switch on their motor pumps and go to bed even as water would flow out… But now with farmers getting power during the daytime, this would stop and a lot of water will be saved,” said the CM. He said a new transmission network capacity was being created under which 3,500 circuit km of new transmission lines will be laid in the next 2-3 years, including setting up of nine 220 KV substations and 234 new transmission lines of 66 KV. In the coming days, farmers in 1,055 villages in Junagadh, Gir Somnath and Dahod districts will be given solar power and this scheme will be extended to farmers across the state in next three years, he said. “Gujarat was the first state in the country to have made a detailed policy for solar power, a decade ago. In 2010, when solar power park was inaugurated at Patan, nobody had imagined that one day, India will show the way to the world about one sun, one world and one grid,” he added.

Launching the paediatric heart unit of UN Mehta Institute of Cardiology and Research Centre in Ahmedabad, Modi said, the hospital was the “the country’s biggest cardiac hospital. It is among the select few hospitals in the country, which has world class infrastructure and modern health facilities.” The existing 450 beds at this hospital have been increased to 1,251.

While launching the “world’s longest temple ropeway project” at Girnar in Junagadh district, Modi said, “The ropeway… is Gujarat’s fourth ropeway project…. If hurdles were not created for the Girnar ropeway, then it would not have remain pending for so many years.” Under the UPA government, the project had trouble getting environmental clearance.