Tag: #UttarPradesh

  • HCL Foundation, UP govt renew Samuday pact till 2031

    HCL Foundation, UP govt renew Samuday pact till 2031

    In a major push for rural development, HCL Foundation and the Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday announced a landmark extension of their Samuday partnership, renewing the flagship rural development programme for another five years, through 2031.

    The two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding at a ceremony in Lucknow, in the presence of Deputy Chief Minister and Rural Development Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, Minister of State for Rural Development Vijay Laxmi Gautam, and senior government officials.

    Maurya said the state government remains committed to integrated rural development, noting that the Samuday partnership had driven significant change in Hardoi district over the past 11 years, and that the renewed MoU aims to replicate this transformation in other districts of Uttar Pradesh.

    Since its launch in Hardoi in 2015, the Samuday partnership by HCL Foundation has grown into one of India’s largest government-CSR collaborations. The programme now spans 579 Gram Panchayats across 13 districts of Uttar Pradesh, reaching more than 3 million people. It is also active in 95 Gram Panchayats in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi district, benefiting over 140,000 residents.

    Under the renewed Samuday partnership, focus areas will include strengthening rural livelihoods, improving education and healthcare access, promoting climate-resilient agriculture, advancing water and sanitation infrastructure, empowering Panchayati Raj institutions, and deepening convergence with government schemes, besides extending the programme’s footprint to additional districts.

    Dr Nidhi Pundhir, Director, HCL Foundation, said the organisation works closely with communities and government bodies to strengthen rural ecosystems and build development models that can be scaled across geographies. She added that the past decade of the Samuday partnership had shown how government, communities and the private sector could jointly deliver lasting impact, and that HCL Foundation looks forward to deepening this collaboration.

    Samuday’s impact since 2015:

    • Over 1.99 million people reached through health and nutrition programmes
    • More than 534,000 students benefited from improved learning environments
    • 113,000+ farmers supported with better agricultural practices
    • 85,000+ youth and women aided through livelihood initiatives
    • 2,224 kWp of renewable energy infrastructure created
    • 2,300+ households covered under waste management interventions

    HCL Foundation, the CSR arm of HCLTech, has so far impacted over 8.5 million lives across its programmes in education, sports, health, sanitation, skilling, livelihood and environmental sustainability.

  • Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath leads 35cr tree plantation drive

    Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath leads 35cr tree plantation drive

    Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday stressed the critical importance of tree plantation, warning that indiscriminate felling could trigger water shortages and food grain crises.

    “A single tree absorbs and retains thousands of litres of water. Rivers remain perennial only where there are forests or a large number of trees,” Adityanath said after planting a Maulsari sapling along the Tal Ring Road near RKBK as part of the Paudharopan Mahayagya 2026 campaign themed ‘Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam’.

    He noted that environmental imbalance disrupts rainfall patterns, harming farmers, and called on every citizen to not only plant but also protect saplings to restore ecological balance.

    The state government has set an ambitious target of planting 35 crore saplings in a single day, supported by over 57 lakh nurseries. Adityanath said robust protection measures have already led to visible increases in forest cover.

    “Expressing gratitude is a hallmark of Indian culture. Through large-scale tree plantation, we can secure a brighter future for generations to come,” he added.

    Adityanath also admired the scenic beauty of Ramgarh Tal and took a selfie at the site.

    Present on the occasion were MP Ravi Kishan Shukla, Mayor Dr. Manglesh Srivastava, MLC Dr. Dharmendra Singh, and other BJP leaders and councillors.

  • Uttar Pradesh to plant 35 crore saplings on July 12

    Uttar Pradesh to plant 35 crore saplings on July 12

    Uttar Pradesh will launch a massive plantation drive on July 12, aiming to plant 35 crore saplings in a single day as part of the state’s Vriksharopan Mahabhiyan 2026 campaign, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Friday.

    Reviewing preparations via video conference, the CM said the Uttar Pradesh plantation drive was intended to function as a public movement rather than a routine government exercise, with success measured by sapling survival rather than volume planted alone, an official statement said.

    The state has set a target of raising green cover to 15% by 2030 and 20% by 2047, the statement said. To meet that goal, authorities plan to plant 35 crore saplings annually over the next five years, a pace they say could help absorb nearly 72 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

    The CM directed departments to complete verification of plantation sites, ensure sapling availability, carry out geo-tagging and arrange irrigation ahead of the drive. He called for participation from citizens, students, farmers, elected representatives and voluntary organisations.

    Officials from the departments of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Rural Development, Agriculture, Horticulture, Panchayati Raj, Revenue and Urban Development presented their action plans during the review.

    The CM also directed that beneficiaries of the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme be linked to the campaign, and said a mix of fruit-bearing, shade-giving, medicinal and timber species should be planted.

    State data show Uttar Pradesh added about 3.38 lakh acres of forest and tree cover between 2017 and 2023, with total cover rising to 9.96% from 9.18% over that period. The state has planted 242 crore saplings since 2017, compared with 51.48 crore between 2009 and 2016, according to the review.

    The campaign also includes several themed initiatives — Mission Chhaya, Samaras Van, Samriddhi Van, City Van, Kapi Van, Maharshi Charak Aushadhi Van, Urja Van, Pauranik Van and Aviral Dhara Van — designed to support biodiversity, reduce heat stress and promote agroforestry across the state.

  • Lava deploys 20,941 MDM-enabled smartphones for anganwadi digital empowerment in UP

    Lava deploys 20,941 MDM-enabled smartphones for anganwadi digital empowerment in UP

    Lava International Limited has partnered with the Government of Uttar Pradesh to deliver Lava smartphones to 20,941 Anganwadi workers statewide, a transforming rollout under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) framework aimed at replacing manual record-keeping with real-time, data-driven service delivery at the grassroots level.

    The handover ceremony was held at Lok Bhavan, Lucknow in March 2026, under the theme “Suposhit Uttar Pradesh, Sashakt Bharat” — Nourished Uttar Pradesh, Empowered India.

    UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath presided over the event alongside Women’s Welfare Minister Baby Rani Maurya, Additional Chief Secretary Leena Johri, and WCD Director Sarneet Kaur Broca. Approximately 1,000 Anganwadi workers attended in person.

    Lava supplied handsets from its Storm Play series, factory-configured for field deployment with Mobile Device Management (MDM) capabilities, a supervisor monitoring application, and state-specific interface integrations aligned to WCD and ICDS digital systems.

    The Anganwadi digital empowerment initiative enables workers to record maternal and child health data in real time, track attendance digitally, monitor nutrition distribution for newborns and lactating mothers, and feed information directly into centralised dashboards.

    “Digital transformation at the grassroots is not just about access to devices, but about building systems that work reliably at scale for those delivering essential services on a day-to-day basis. This initiative is a testament of our ability to design and deliver technology solutions tailored for real-world public sector needs,” said Llyod D’souza, Chief Business Officer, Enterprise Business, Lava International Limited.

    The deployment directly addresses longstanding bottlenecks in welfare delivery. Supervisors can now remotely monitor field activity, track stock availability of food packets for at-risk households, and receive early alerts on potential health and nutrition risks — capabilities previously dependent on paper-based reporting cycles.

    Officials said the initiative supports the UP government’s broader ambition to bridge the digital divide through scalable, technology-led interventions and strengthen last-mile delivery of public welfare programmes.

    For Lava, the contract extends a record of enterprise public-sector deployments as the company positions itself as a domestic alternative in India’s government mobility procurement market.

  • HCLFoundation expands My Clean City program to Agra, donates Sanitation fleet to Nagar Nigam

    HCLFoundation expands My Clean City program to Agra, donates Sanitation fleet to Nagar Nigam

    HCLFoundation, which drives the corporate social responsibility agenda of HCLTech in India, announced on Monday the expansion of its My Clean City program to Agra, Uttar Pradesh — the first city outside the Noida–Greater Noida belt to receive the initiative since its 2019 launch.

    As part of the rollout, the foundation donated 10 e-drain carts, two e-street sweeping machines and one HomoSep robot — a mechanised septic tank cleaning device — to Agra Nagar Nigam, the city’s municipal body. The equipment is intended to reduce hazardous manual work while improving the scale and consistency of urban waste management.

    The HomoSep robot, already deployed in Gautam Buddha Nagar, has cleared more than 100,000 litres of sludge across 452 manholes and sewer sites — removing sanitation workers from direct exposure to toxic conditions. The device represents a broader pivot within the program toward mechanisation as a tool for worker safety.

    Since its launch, My Clean City has engaged nearly 750,000 citizens through behavioural sensitisation drives and trained more than 61,000 stakeholders on waste management practices. The program has managed over 17,000 tonnes of waste in Noida and Greater Noida, and runs a Waste Champions Club involving more than 2,400 school students.

    The initiative also carries a social welfare component. Under its Social Inclusion of Sanitation Workers program, 200 sanitation worker families in Gautam Buddha Nagar receive support across health, education, financial literacy and skill development — a recognition that sustainable sanitation reform extends beyond infrastructure.

    Five biogas plants, each processing between 1,500 and 1,800 kg of cow dung daily, have been established in the region as part of complementary clean energy efforts, generating fuel from waste material.

    HCLFoundation said the Agra expansion reflects a strategy of replicating proven urban sanitation models in new municipal geographies. The foundation, which reported having positively impacted over 7.5 million lives to date, focuses thematically on education, health and sanitation, skill development, environment, and disaster risk reduction.

  • HCLFoundation boosts pediatric heart care in UP

    HCLFoundation boosts pediatric heart care in UP

    HCLFoundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of Indian technology giant HCLTech, on Tuesday donated a suite of advanced intensive care equipment to the Saloni Heart Center at Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) in Lucknow — marking a breakthrough in pediatric heart care access for millions of children across Uttar Pradesh.

    Uttar Pradesh records an estimated 75,000 congenital heart disease (CHD) births annually, yet the state until recently lacked a dedicated pediatric cardiac facility. The Saloni Heart Center, established within SGPGIMS as Uttar Pradesh’s first such institution, aims to address that critical gap — and Monday’s donation directly strengthens its post-operative and neonatal intensive care capabilities.

    Life-Saving Equipment Delivered

    The donated equipment includes a Panda ResusView Warmer with Resuscitation Trolley to ensure safe thermal regulation and integrated resuscitation support during critical cardiac episodes; an SLE 6000 Paediatric Neonatal Ventilator, a high-precision device designed for newborns and infants requiring controlled respiratory support; and a GE Bilisoft Fibre Optic Phototherapy System for treating neonatal jaundice — a complication particularly hazardous for CHD infants who cannot be routinely transferred to other wards.

    The initiative was attended by senior government officials including Shri Amit Kumar Ghosh, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary for Medical Health and Family Welfare, Government of Uttar Pradesh, and Awanish Kumar Avasthi, IAS, Senior Advisor to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.

    Also present were Prof. Radha K Dhiman, Director, SGPGIMS; Prof. S.K. Agarwal, Head, Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery, SGPGIMS; Shri Himanshu Seth, Executive Chairman, Saloni Heart Foundation; and Rishi Kumar, Senior Vice President, HCLTech.