Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is widely recognised as a monk-turned-politician, who continues to follow his traditional religious practices.
However, of late, the chief minister is turning increasingly tech-savvy, leaving his officers, aides and supporters pleasantly surprised.
He is promoting his e-office concept that is in consonance with the ‘Digital India’ policy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The chief minister has installed the ‘Darpan’ dashboard on his iPad which helps him remain updated about the works in various departments.
“Yogi Adityanath travels within the state and even outside the state very frequently. He remains updated on the Dashboard wall, tracks the progress of every department, issues orders and even gives sanctions on various files through the dashboard. While air-travelling, he remains busy on the ‘Darpan’ dashboard and does not waste a minute,” said one of his aides.
The chief minister also communicates with senior officials, his ministerial colleagues through the dashboard.
The Darpan dashboard has been suitably modified for the UP chief minister and helps him monitor the developmental projects.
“He can view files, give orders, check the statistics related to every district. In fact, his iPad is now his office on the go,” said Alok Kumar, secretary to the chief minister, who is heading an IT team that works on the projects.
The new tech-savvy chief minister, meanwhile, has put the entire bureaucracy on its toes.
“We can no longer relax if the chief minister is travelling because we know he is on the dashboard when not addressing rallies. This has made the system quicker and more responsive because you never know when a query from the chief minister will pop up on our phones,” said a district magistrate.
Yogi Adityanath’s supporters, however, are amazed at this transformation.
“We always knew that Yogi ji is a keen learner and remains tuned to latest developments but we did not expect him to adapt to new technology so soon,” said a Yogi supporter at the Gorakh temple in Gorakhpur.
