BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s penchant to compare the state with the US continues.
Eight months after Chouhan, during a trip to the US, claimed that the condition of roads in MP was better than that of the roads in America, he has now promised to make the cities of the state better than US cities.
Addressing a program in Sagar district on Saturday, Chouhan said towns and cities in MP would be developed better than the cities of US over the next five years. Incidentally, Assembly elections are slated in the central Indian state in November-December.
“Our government is committed to transforming the towns and cities in the state as the most clean, beautiful and advanced cities. The government is also working to empower the poor, farmers and women considering it as service to god,” Chouhan, a three-term CM, said.
In October 2017, while addressing a business round-table organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum in Washington, Chouhan had claimed that the condition of roads in MP was better than those in the US. He had also cited a report to claim that 92 per cent roads in Washington were in “poor shape”.
“I want to give you an example. If you go to the city through the super corridor from the Indore airport, you will find world-class roads. This was in my mind when I was speaking in the US,” Chouhan had said after his return from the US trip.
He had also claimed that Madhya Pradesh was way ahead of the US in terms of women empowerment.
At the same event in Sagar, MP’s urban development and housing minister Maya Singh said the budget for urban development for the year 2003 was `807 crore which now stands at `11,559 crore, nearly eight times more.
Singh said schemes worth more than `14,0000 crore are being dedicated for the first time in the history of the state.