Envisioning the villages of state as unemployment, illiteracy and poverty free units, the Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal today announced to felicitate three top performing sarpanches of villages, working towards achieving this goal, in a state level function on Independence Day. Interacting with the representatives of three best performing Panchayats of every district here during a meeting at Punjab Bhawan this afternoon, the Chief Minister said that the holistic growth of villages was the need of hour to give further impetus to all round development of state. He said that the Rural Development and Panchayats department of state would evolve a mechanism to identify the top performing village Panchayats every year, so that they could be honored at the state level functions on Independence Day. Mr. Badal said that this award would be given in due recognition of the Panchayats towards ensuring public welfare and development of villages.
Exhorting the Panchayats and officers of state government to make concerted efforts for giving fillip to the development of state, the Chief Minister said that this gigantic task could not be possible without active support and cooperation of general public. Mr. Badal said that the people should regularly monitor the ongoing development works in state adding that this would help in quality execution of work. He also asked the officers to undertake frequent field visits to acquaint themselves about the ground realities. The Chief Minister said that as majority of population of state live in villages so the state government was committed to ensure unprecedented development in them. He said that the state government was committed to provide facilities at par with cities to facilitate people. Mr. Badal said that the sole aim of holding such parleys was to prepare a road map for giving further impetus to ongoing development of state.
On the occasion, the Chief Minister asked the POWERCOM authorities to release Tube well connections for Panchayat land within a month. Likewise, he also said that in order to make Punjab an open defecation free state, the work of constructing toilets in every household should be expedited. He also said that in order to give a voice to farming community in decision making process the state government has already approved the formation of Punjab Kisan Vikas Chamber. Prominent amongst other present on the occasion included Additional Chief Secretaries Mr. NS Kalsi and Mr. KBS Sidhu, Principal Secretary Health Mrs. Vinnie Mahajan, Special Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Mr. KJS Cheema, Secretary Water Supply and Sanitation Mr. AK Sinha, Secretary Rural Development and Panchayats Mr. Deep Inder Singh, Secretary Irrigation Mr. Kahan Singh Pannu, Secretary Mandi Board Mr. TPS Sidhu, Secretary Welfare Mr. Kirpa Shankar Saron, Executive Director, Punjab State Scheduled Castes Land Development and Finance Corporation Mr. Sibin C, Director Panchayats Mr. SS Bains, Additional Director Mr. GK Singh and Director Milkfed Mr. Manjit Singh Brar