Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday gave green signal to the Punjab Mandi Board for embarking a special drive to widen, upgrade and strengthen 4465 kilometres of rural roads in the state.A decision to this effect was taken by the Chief Minister while chairing a review meeting of the Board here at his official residence.
During the meeting, the Chief Minister gave his nod for repairing 4465 kilometres of road at a cost of Rs 692 crore. He said that it is the need of the hour to strengthen the rural road network for facilitating the commuters. Bhagwant Mann said that these roads must be built while adhering to highest quality norms adding that any sort of callousness in this is not desirable.
In another significant decision aimed at making Punjab clean, green and pollution free, the Chief Minister also gave nod for developing green belt over 1000 kilometre of road. He asked Punjab Mandi Board to plant two lakh saplings on this stretch of road and subsequently ensure its maintenance for two years.
The Chief Minister also took stock of the new initiatives of the board including Integrated Management System (IMS) and Mandi Management system to eradicate duplication, manual efforts and to make collection of fees more effective, with Estate Management System, Accounts Management System and Integration with e-NAM and Agmarknet. Likewise, he also lauded Mobile App: e-PMB developed by board on both Android and iOS platform with key features of Employee Attendance, e-Services like Licensee Management, Estate Management, Mandi Management, Complaints and suggestions, Apni/ Kisan Mandi, Act/ Rules and others. Bhagwant Mann also hailed the revolutionary steps like e-Payment Gateway for online collection of MDF and RDF, e-Auction of Properties, Drone mapping of Mandis and Rural Road Network, i-HRM Vehicle Tracking System (VTS) for all crops, Electronic NFC enabled I-Cards for officers/ employees, Online submission and approval of Market Committees Budget, Digital Empowerment of Farmers by making J Forms available in the Digi Locker of farmer (a digital document wallet) and on his whatsapp, for all types of crops.
The Chief Minister also lauded the fact that online registration of 12.35 lakh farmers (aadhar-based) have been already done and 48,255 beneficiaries have been issued online u/s 10 license.On the occasion Cabinet Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, Chief Secretary Vijay Kumar Janjua, Additional Chief Secretary to CM a Venuprasad, Additional Chief Secretary Sarvjit Singh, Special Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Ravi Bhagat and others were also present.