The Hindu : Amarinder announces more sops

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 15, 2004

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Amarinder announces more sops

By Sarabjit Pandher

CHANDIGARH, JAN. 14. The Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, has chosen Bathinda to launch the party's poll campaign in Punjab for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. Final touches were being given to the arrangements by the authorities for what is being termed as a "historic'' rally at the designated Transport Nagar. Mrs Gandhi would unveil an ambitious programme of devolution of powers to the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs).

The party's State unit is working overtime to put up a united show after their recent bouts of factional feud. The State Government has made arrangements for the attendance of at least one lakh people. During the last Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had won eight of the 13 seats.

As a prelude to Mrs Gandhi's visit, the Punjab Government today announced its second set of concessions for the people. At meetings in different departments, several decisions were arrived at in relation to payments of old age and widow pension, 24-hour power supply to villages and repair of rural link roads. The decisions were taken at a series of meetings chaired by the Chief Minister, Amarinder Singh.

According to an official release, the State Government decided to begin the regular disbursement of old age and widow pension and released Rs. 60 crores as first instalment. Under the scheme men and women above the age of 65 and 60 years, respectively, as well as widows would receive Rs. 200 per month as pension. It would be disbursed by the PRIs soon.

At its meeting, the high level committee approved the repair of 19,820 kms of rural link roads at a cost of Rs 1,017 crores by the end of March 2005. Of this, repair work on 5,000 kms of rural roads will be completed by the end of April this year at a cost of Rs. 183.69 crores. Another amount of Rs 38 crores was sanctioned for minor repairs like patchwork along 28,000 kms of existing roads.

The repair work to be completed by the end of April, includes a set of link roads, which cumulatively measure 2480 kms and were repaired before March 1995. The repair of these roads will cost Rs. 92.34 crores.

Another set of 2512 km link roads, which were earlier repaired between April 1995 and March 1996, will be repaired at a cost of Rs. 91.35 crores.

Repair work on 14,820 kms of link roads will be undertaken during the next financial year at a cost of Rs 744 crores apart from Rs 51 crores to be spent on patchwork on 27,000 kms of roads, an official disclosed.

At another meeting, the Chief Minister directed the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) to complete all infrastructural installations to ensure 24-hour power supply to all villages by June 30.

So far, of the nearly 12,000 villages, only 6700 were being provided regular power. Prominent among present in these meetings included Rural Development, Panchayat and Agriculture Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Finance Minister, Lal Singh, PWD (B&R) Minister, Partap Singh Bajwa, Social Security and Welfare Minister, Joginder Singh Mann, State Minister for Housing & Urban Development, Malkiat Singh Birmi, Parliamentary Secretary, Gurbinder Singh Atwal, Chief Secretary, Jai Singh Gill, Financial Commissioners and Principal Secretaries of the departments concerned and Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Suresh Kumar.

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Amarinder announces more sops