Congress now considering east-to-west yatra from Pasighat to Porbandar: Jairam Ramesh
Nava Raipur, Feb 26: The Congress is considering a Pasighat-to-Porbandar yatra, party general secretary Jairam Ramesh said on Sunday after Rahul Gandhi called for taking the "tapasya" of the Bharat Jodo Yatra forward.
Ramesh asserted that there was a lot of enthusiasm and energy among party workers for another yatra after the nearly 4,000-km Kanyakumari-to-Kashmir journey that was undertaken by Gandhi and scores of Congress persons from September last year to January this year.
Ramesh told PTI that an east-to-west yatra, probably from Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh to Porbandar in Gujarat, was being considered but its format could be a bit different from the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
"There is a lot of enthusiasm and energy. I also think personally it is needed but the format of the east-to-west yatra may turn out to be different from the format of the south-to-north Bharat Jodo Yatra," Ramesh said.
It may not have such an elaborate infrastructure that was mobilised for the Bharat Jodo Yatra and may have less yatris, he said.
He said it would largely be a padayatra but there are jungles and rivers on this route. "It would be a multi-modal yatra, but mostly it would be a padayatra," Ramesh said.
He said that with elections in Karnataka in April, rains from June and again state polls in November, the yatra may have to be undertaken before June or before November.
Ramesh also added that the yatra would be of a shorter duration than the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
He said all this will be decided in the next few weeks.
Addressing the Congress plenary session, Gandhi said the party should formulate a new plan to carry forward the "tapasya" undertaken through the Bharat Jodo Yatra and that he along with the entire country will participate in it, indicating another such initiative.
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Kumaraswamy to visit Andrew Yule's tea gardens in Assam soon
Guwahati(PTI): Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Monday said he would soon visit tea gardens, owned by public sector enterprise Andrew Yule, to revive its estates as workers are facing immense hardship.
Kumaraswamy, the minister of steel and heavy industries, thanked Assam Industries Minister Bimal Borah for apprising him of various challenges being faced by the tea gardens and the need to support the management to alleviate suffering of workers.
"We are concerned about the economic challenges and hardship of the tea gardens owned by Andrew Yule Group in Assam and its impact on the wage earners," Kumaraswamy said at a press conference here.
The tea garden wage earners will also get a 20 per cent Durga Puja bonus, like workers of other gardens, he said.
Referring to his recent visit to the Cement Corporation of India Ltd factory at Bokajan in Karbi Anglong district, Kumaraswamy said there was a plan for the revival of the cement industry in the state by investing Rs 700 crore.
He also emphasised on the need for a cement manufacturing unit in the northeastern states.
On the current development of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) policy utilisation in Assam, the union minister said more than Rs 2,000 crore would be invested for battery charging stations and nearly 70,000 such facilities will be set up across the country.
More than 18,000 e-buses will also be purchased to fulfil the goal of carbon emission reduction, Kumaraswamy added.
