In a first, the UP Legislative Assembly will convene a special 36-hour session to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2. Earlier after an all party meeting in September, Assembly Speaker had announced to hold the uninterrupted session for 48 hours which was later curtailed to 36 hours.

During the Special Session, the government would discuss ways to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals of development in the Assembly and Legislative Council. 

Issues like poverty alleviation, gender inequality elimination, malnutrition, clean energy, universal healthcare and education, nutrition, drinking water, gender equality etc will be discussed.

The session will also ensure that those legislators who never get a chance to put forth their views in the House regularly are given ample time to speak about the problems of their respective constituencies and suggest ways to sustainable development.

“UP Assembly is the largest legislature of the country after Lok Sabha. It is the biggest state legislature in terms of the number of MLAs, size and population of the state. India is a signatory of SDG programme and UP has implemented all the programmes of SDG during the last decade. The Assembly will discuss those issues and also ponder over the measures to make them more  effective for the welfare of common people,” Dikshit said.

The Speaker said as per the UN deadline, all development goals were to be achieved by 2030. He said that the Special Session was an innovative idea which had evoked a lot of curiosity not only within India but also outside the country.

Dikshit said that the UP government had reiterated its commitment to working towards realising Mahatma Gandhi’s dream of improving the living standard of people standing on the last rung of the ladder. “While the state government has taken several measures to achieve development goals, there was still a lot to be done,” the Speaker said.