The Minister of State for Education, Technical Education, Culture, Tourism, Horticulture, Floriculture and Parks, Priya Sethi today convened a public grievance redressal camp at Sumb block of district Samba. The Minister was accompanied by MLA Samba, Dr D K Manyal and DDC Samba, Sheetal Nanda.A large number of people from Pathwal, Chandli, Patyari, Dunai, Taloor and other nearby villages attended the camp and highlighted their problems including irregular water supply, poor road connectivity and erratic power supply. They also demanded better facilities for agriculture and horticulture production in the area. Speaking on the occasion, the Minister directed the PHE department to lay special focus on water supply in view of repeated public complaints. She further directed them to have regular and frequent interaction with the public and explore various convergence possibilities. Responding to issues raised by people for sanctioning of Model School at GHSS Sumb, the Minister assured that the matter will be taken up on priority.
Priya Sethi informed the gathering that steps would be taken to accelerate the development projects especially the NABARD sponsored projects in the area. She said the government is giving high priority to horticulture sector and also referred to special grant of Rs 500 crore sanctioned by the central government for the development of Horticulture sector. She also said that DPRs for developing dedicated tourism circuits in the area have been prepared and sent for further process. She directed Horticulture and Agriculture departments to organize joint awareness programmes in the district and improve marketing facilities for the farmers.MLA Samba highlighted the recent initiatives for augmentation of power supply and assured that all issues will be redressed in a time bound manner. He announced that up gradation of Sumb hospital shall be taken up at the cost of Rs 1 crore. He further directed PHE authorities to maintain comprehensive Panchayat wise database of Dugwell, Tube Well and other infrastructure in the district.
The Minister also emphasized on the benefits of recent step of demonetization taken by the Government of India. The Minister highlighted long term benefits of demonetization like curbing black money, check on corruption and burgeoning property prices and widening of tax net and tax collection which shall benefit the Indian Economy. She added that such a bold step will also help to keep a check on counterfeit currency and Terrorism. Further utility and operation of POS machines and benefits of e-wallet were discussed with the business community and general public.The Lead Bank Manager Samba and JK Bank Manager Samba informed the participants about benefits of cashless economy and various mechanisms through which a user can make cashless payments.Among others, Director Technical Education, Shabnam Kamili, ADDC Samba Vivek Sharma, Joint Director Tourism, Joint Director Education, Deputy Director Horticulture and concerned senior officers were present on the occasion.Earlier, the Minister also inspected Govt. Polytechnic College, Samba and shortlisted sites for establishment of Regional Vocational Training Institute at Samba.