Create dedicated food street in every city with outlets from different parts of India, UP CM tells officials

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday said that the Culture and the Housing departments should coordinate with different development authorities to prepare an action plan for creating a dedicated food street in every city, where people can get a wide variety of food belonging to different states and societies. Speaking at Sangam Catering Programme organised by Uttar Pradesh Culture Department in Lucknow, the Chief Minister said that would introduce people to food from different states and they would know what to look for when they travel to states like Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.

Stating that the food of Indian states may be different, but the energy that it gives is the same, the Chief Minister pointed out that India's diversity in terms of food, dress, language and culture, is its speciality. CM Yogi also congratulated the people of the state on the occasion of the Christmas festival as well as the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister and Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Bharat Ratna Madan Mohan Malaviya.

"We have had the tradition of Sangam since ancient times. All the cultures of India are the country's strengths. So, we should have dedicated food streets where people can get food not only from different parts of the country but also from different parts within the states, such as Garhwal and Kumaon in Uttarakhand and Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Bundelkhandi and Braj in UP," Yogi said. "From north to south and from east to west we are all one. The biggest confluence of the country is in Prayagraj, where the invisible Saraswati river merges with holy rivers like Ganga and Yamuna. Here we all get to see the world's biggest cultural event in the form of Kumbh. If you walk from Uttarakhand, you will find many Prayags. Vishnu Prayag, Nand Prayag, Karna Prayag, Rudra Prayag, Dev Prayag and then this Prayag and this confluence are seen in the form of our present Prayagraj," he added.

Referring to the recently held Kashi-Tamil Sangamam, the Chief Minister said that the initiative aimed at bringing people of two diverse cultures together to help them know and understand each other better and unite them. "Twelve groups from Tamil Nadu were in Kashi for a month. The groups included students, teachers, religious leaders, artists, handicraftsmen, farmers and labourers. They visited Prayagraj and Ayodhya. This cultural exchange cleared the Tamils' misconceptions about Uttar Pradesh and north India which they had formed due to negative propaganda run by some vested interests. It has exposed those propagandists. Every Tamil who came to the Kashi-Tamil Sangamam was overwhelmed by the hospitality of the people of UP", he remarked.