Melinda Gates showers praises on Yogi, says his govt is 'model for the world'

Melinda Gates said the direction of development in the state has been right and called it 'unprecedented'.

Lucknow, Dec 07: Melinda Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), on Tuesday hailed the Uttar Pradesh government led by Yogi Adityanath for its works in the areas of health security, financial inclusion, nutrition, education, women empowerment. She met him at his official residence to discuss on enhancing technical cooperation in the fields of health, nutrition and agriculture.

"Had a wonderful meeting with co-chair and trustee of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, at my official residence in Lucknow today. We had a fruitful discussion regarding better technical cooperation in the field of health, nutrition, social security and agriculture in UP," Yogi tweeted after the meeting.

During the meeting, Gates hailed the work done by Uttar Pradesh in recent years highlighting the Covid management and encephalitis control despite a dense population. "Amidst the challenges of Covid, the way, the state leadership tackled the issue of dense population and various social challenges is highly commendable," ANI quoted her saying.

She praised the efforts of the state Government in the areas of health security, financial inclusion, nutrition, education, women empowerment and added, "Uttar Pradesh is a model not only for India but for the whole world". Melinda's Foundation has deep ties with Uttar Pradesh. Gates said, "there are immense possibilities for development in Uttar Pradesh. She had special mention about the infrastructure in the past few years and called it "unprecedented" while calling the direction of development has been right.

Meanwhile, Yogi Adityanath said that he claimed that BMGF has made a commendable contribution to the field of health and nutrition and the state received logistics and technical support from the Foundation amidst the challenges of COVID. "We are grateful to the Foundation for this gesture," Yogi said.

He further added, "Uttar Pradesh has achieved satisfactory success in health and nutrition in recent years. About 95% of the deaths of innocent children caused by a disease like encephalitis have been controlled. "Besides, the Foundation has cooperated with us for effective control of communicable diseases like Chikungunya and Kala-azar. We have received good cooperation from global organizations like UNICEF, WHO, BMGF and PATH in the field of public health including in controlling various waterborne diseases such as encephalitis and Covid management. Such efforts will continue to be made with mutual cooperation," said CM.

He said, "There has been unprecedented improvement in Uttar Pradesh in the field of health and nutrition. On many parameters, our performance is better than the national average."

The BJP CM also spoke about the major challenge in the availability of skilled nursing/paramedics and how schemes like 'Banking Sakhi' have not only strengthened financial inclusion in villages but have also been instrumental in women's empowerment.

With inputs from ANI