Bhopal:
Madhya Pradesh has become the first state to provide air travel facility to senior citizens for pilgrimage as 32 people took off from Bhopal to Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh today.
32 senior citizens are traveling under the state’s Chief Minister Teerth-Darshan Yojana, which was flagged off by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from Raja Bhoj Airport in Bhopal this morning.
The batch comprises 24 men and eight women.
Under the first phase of air travel facility, senior citizens of Madhya Pradesh will travel by air in different batches from different airports of the state till July this year.
Ram Singh Kushwaha, 72, tells NDTV, “It is every person’s dream to travel by air. Everyone wants to travel by air at least once in their lifetime. Our dream is coming true.”
Another passenger Ramdas says that he is going out of the state for the first time.
After sending off the passengers, the Chief Minister said that he has fulfilled a resolution today. “Today a resolution was fulfilled. A dream came true. Elderly people like my parents are going on a pilgrimage by aeroplane,” he said.
The Mukhyamantri Teerth-Darshan Yojana scheme was launched by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime in 2012 and senior citizens were being sent for pilgrimage free of cost by special trains. This is the first time that people have been evacuated by air. So far 7.82 lakh senior citizens have availed the benefits of the pilgrimage scheme.
Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh are due later this year and the ruling BJP government is trying to influence different sections of citizens by providing new concessions.