Chief Minister's vision of self-reliant Himachal will be realized only through self-reliant villages

Chief Minister Thakur Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu today launched the 'Sarkar Gaon Ke Dwaar' program, aimed at solving the problems of the people at their doorstep. He launched this at Galore of Nadaun assembly constituency in Hamirpur district. As many as 87 complaints were received during the program. He directed to upload all these complaints on the Chief Minister Helpline.

The government is organising the program across the state to make people aware of the various policies, programmes and achievements of the state government during the last one year. The ministers and MLAs would also visit villages to inform people about the public welfare schemes being implemented so that the people could derive maximum benefits from them.

Considering that about 90 percent of the population of the state resides in villages and  efforts would be made to strengthen the village economy in the coming budget, said the Chief Minister, adding that, "The vision of prosperous Himachal will be realized only when our villages become self-reliant". The target has been set to make Himachal the most prosperous state of the country in the next 10 years, he remarked.

Huge debt was inherited due to excessive borrowings and poor fiscal mismanagement of funds by the previous BJP government. It is not the congress to be blamed, he said adding that the State was taking loan just to repay the interests amassed due to excessive loan amount taken by previous BJP government. "We were well aware of this enormous debt yet fulfilling the promise made to the employees, we restored the OPS in the very first cabinet as promised in our election manifesto", he reiterated. A request was made to the Central Government to release Rs 9000 crore of NPS but the Union Government has not heeded to our request. Perhaps the Central Government was not in favour of restoring the OPS to the State employees, he said.

Himachal had to face the biggest natural calamity last year. As many as 3,000 houses were completely destroyed and 13,000 houses in the state were partially damaged. Despite limited resources, the state government has taken up the task of rehabilitating the disaster affected. Announcing a special relief package of Rs 4500 crore despite the financial crunch, the affected families were being provided house rent of Rs 5000 per month in rural areas and Rs 10,000 per month in urban areas along with free ration and gas cylinders. The government increased the compensation package manifold by making changes in the relief manual.

The Chief Minister said that amidst the disaster the BJP leaders kept demanding to call the Assembly session but they did not support the resolution to provide a special relief package to Himachal on the lines of Bhuj and Kedarnath. He said, 'I want to ask the MPs and State BJP leaders, why they didn't persuade the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister to release a special relief package for the State during the disaster.  . "If the Central Government has given any special economic package to Himachal Pradesh in connection with the disaster, then the BJP leaders should provide details of the same", he pointed. He said that when a resolution was brought in the Assembly to declare the natural calamity in Himachal Pradesh as a 'National Disaster', the BJP MLAs opposed it ignoring the sorrow of the people of the State.

He said that the central government undertakings were opposing the water cess as levied by the State Government on its hydel projects. Along with this, Rs 4300 crore of Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) was lying with the Central Government since many years which has not been released yet. The interests of Himachal Pradesh were not kept in mind and the previous BJP government gave Luhri, Sunni and Dhaula-Siddh hydropower projects to SJVN on easy terms, he said.

This proves that BJP is anti-Himachal, he said as it did not stand with the disaster affected people.

The Chief Minister said that the state government is filling 20 thousand posts in various government departments. Along with this, projects related to e-taxi and solar energy have been started to promote self-employment. 4000 orphan children have been adopted as Children of the State. The state government will provide assistance of Rs 1.50 lakh to single women and widows to build houses. The Government will make provision for opening schools and colleges for special children in the next budget.

The Revenue Lok Adalats were being conducted in the last two days of every month to settle the pending revenue cases. More than 65,000 pending cases of Mutation and more than three and a half thousand partition cases  have been settled so far. For the first time, any government in the Revenue Department has made serious efforts in this direction.

The Chief Minister said that out of 273 mutation cases 266 have been resolved whereas out of 115 partition cases pending in the revenue courts under Galore tehsil, 60 cases were disposed off.

The Chief Minister also laid the foundation stone of Kapra bridge to be built at a cost of Rs 3.43 crore, Primary Health Centre, Phahal to be built at a cost of Rs 1.35 crore and Phahal-Kotlu drinking water scheme to cost Rs 1.10 crore under Nadaun assembly constituency.

The Chief Minister also distributed tablets to 250 meritorious students.

During the program, Gram Panchayat Bari Farnol presented a check of rupees one lakh and former head of GOIS Balak Ram presented a check of Rs 50 thousand to the Chief Minister for disaster relief fund.

Galore Mandal Congress President Captain Prem Chand welcomed and expressed his gratitude to the Chief Minister on his arrival in Galore.