Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday asked the Deputy Commissioners to prioritize the core sectors of education, health, power and water for ensuring quality of life of citizens across the state.Chairing a meeting of all Deputy Commissioners here at Punjab Bhawan, Captain Amarinder Singh directed them to go for extensive monitoring of various development and welfare schemes related to these focus sectors to ensure strict implementation of such programmes.The CM also asked the DCs to tighten their belts to push development and welfare projects to fulfil the aspirations of the people in line with the Government’s development agenda for the state. The Chief Minister made it clear that respect for elected representatives is a must in democracy, and asked them to be courteous in their dealings and give due respect to the legislators to ensure overall development.To ensure smooth delivery of citizen centric services, the Chief Minister asked the Deputy Commissioners to personally keep close tabs on the functioning of the Sewa Kendras in order to curtail the pendency of applications for seeking various citizen services.ACS Governance Reforms Vini Mahajan informed the meeting that 515 sewa kendras were functioning in the state, with a pendency of 42261 against 2,60,4975 applications received from all the districts. She also pointed out Sewa Kendras projects under the current service delivery model were self sustainable and there was no burden on the Finance Department.The Chief Minister also asked the DCs to instruct the revenue officials to ensure prompt disposal of revenue matters such as transfer of property, partition, mutation cases etc. He directed them to convene monthly meetings of Grievance Redressal Committee and send comprehensive reports within the stipulated time frame.
Taking serious note of electricity theft in the border areas, especially in Tarn Taran district (71.29 percent), the Chief Minister said that this led to huge losses to the state exchequer, and must be checked with a heavy hand. He asked the Deputy Commissioner Tarn Taran to work out a strategy with the police and PSPCL to stamp out this menace.
On the issue of drugs, the Chief Minister expressed satisfaction over the results so far, and the resultant perceptible decrease in the number of drug users and huge seizure of drugs and psychotropic substances, as well as the arrest of several drug peddlers and smugglers.However, Captain Amarinder further asked the DCs not to be complacent in this regard and work in tandem with the STF, district police and health department to achieve better results to eliminate the scourge of drugs, as well as to rehabilitate the drug addicts.Reviewing the progress of his Government’s flagship Ghar Ghar Rozgar programme, the Chief Minister asked the DCs to tie up with leading employers, industrialists, business groups and job providers for sourcing of vacancies with a package of Rs. 3 lakh per annum and above.Meanwhile, the meeting was informed that under the Punjab Ghar Ghar Rozgar and Karobar Mission, the government has planned high end job fairs during March 2020 at Amritsar, Phagwara, Bathinda, Mohali and SBS Nagar. Graduates from different fields like engineering, management, medicine, hospitality, tourism, agriculture, animal husbandry, banking, arts and science etc can participate in these job fairs, which aim to facilitate employment to over 2000 youth with high end jobs.During the meeting, the Chief Minister categorically said that adulteration in food and dairy products would not be tolerated at any cost and directed the DCs to launch a major crackdown in sync with Tandarust Punjab mission against such unscrupulous traders and dealers.
While reviewing the progress of social security and welfare schemes, the Chief Minister asked the DCs to intensify their efforts for recruitment of staff in Sakhi - One Stop Centres, besides identifying suitable land for establishment of Sakhi centres and Child Care Institutions. He also asked the DCs to expeditiously fill up the vacancies in District Child Protection Units to ensure safety and security of children. He also gave the DCs the target of issuing 100 percent Unique Disability Identity Cards, by June 30, 2020, to all the divyangs who had paper certificates.Captain Amarinder Singh also instructed the DCs to identify adequate panchayat lands to provide 5 marla plots to the landless and homeless poor families on priority. He also asked the Principal Secretary to include certain development works like upgradation of infrastructure in schools and street lights in rural areas under the smart village campaign.The Chief Minister further asked the DCs to regularly monitor the progress of solid waste management for door to door collection of segregated waste, wet waste processing facilities and bulk waste generators compliance, up to March 31, 2020. Captain Amarinder Singh asked the DCs to monitor the progress to ensure all the basic civic amenities of potable water, sewerage, street lighting and roads in the urban areas on top priority.The Chief Minister asked the DC Amritsar and Tarn Taran to chalk out an action plan in sync with army authorities for the up-gradation of narrow metallic bridges in the border areas, which was a major cause of mishaps. He said he had already taken up this issue personally with the Chief of the Western Command.
Expressing grave concern over the growing menace of stray cattle and dogs, which had become a major nuisance and had claimed several precious lives in the past several years, Captain Amarinder Singh asked the DCs to suggest ways and means to tackle the problem of stray cattle in a holistic manner.The Chief Minister also reviewed the flood preparedness with the DCs and asked the Chief Secretary to place sufficient funds on the disposal of Deputy Commissioners to execute various flood protection works, especially at vulnerable sites, well in advance of the onset of the monsoon season. He also asked the DCs to complete the disbursement of compensation to flood victims on account of last year’s massive floods and get all requisite formalities done from the revenue officials.During the meeting, presentations were made by the departments of Rural Development & Panchayats, Local Government, Social Security, Women and Child Development and Governance Reforms.Earlier, the Water Resources Minister Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria had a detailed meeting with the Deputy Commissioners to monitor the progress of flood protection works and desilting of drains during 2020-21. He also discussed the first priority works related to flood protection, desilting/cleaning of drains to the tune of Rs. 343.75 crore in all the 22 districts as per the requirements raised by the Deputy Commissioners.Prominent amongst others present at the meeting were Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh, Special Chief Secretary Revenue KBS Sidhu, Additional Chief Secretary Local Government Sanjay Kumar, Additional Chief Secretary Development Viswajeet Khanna, Principal Secretary to CM Tejveer Singh, Principal Secretary Rural Development and Panchayats Seema Jain, Principal Secretary Water Resources A Venu Prasad, ADGP Provisioning Arpit Shukla, Secretary Employment Generation and Training Rahul Tewari.