Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Sunday said that the process of filling 1.13 lakh vacant posts in various departments to provide employment opportunities to the State’s youth would be completed very soon.

Badal, interacting with the media persons on the sidelines of his Sangat Darshan program in Khadoor Sahib assembly segment, said that various departments have been asked to initiate the recruitment drive by advertising these posts in newspapers.

The recruitment would be done in a fully transparent and fool-proof manner so as to ensure that only eligible and deserving candidates were selected for these posts, purely on merit, said Badal.

“The departments have been asked to ensure that recruitment drive is completed shortly so that deserving youth could be enrolled in the state government,” he said.

Badal said that the people of Punjab have time and again reposed faith in the people-friendly and development-oriented policies of the SAD-BJP alliance. “Owing to unprecedented development of the state and major initiatives for well-being of all sections of society, the alliance would come back to power after assembly elections slated to be held in 2017. There is hardly any doubt that the people of state will elect the alliance government for third consecutive term after these polls,” he said.

Advising the State Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh to shun politics of confrontation, Badal said that people of state have rejected the political approach of the lok Sabha MP from Amritsar twice in 2007 and 2012.

“The former Chief Minister must learn lesson from his trounce in yesteryear's and resort to politics of consensus both within his party and outside…Capt was rejected because of vendetta politics pursued by him whereas people like us because we do not believe in this type of politics,” he added.

The Chief Minister said that the SAD-BJP alliance Government has embarked upon a major scheme to give facelift to the state, for which Rs25 crore per assembly has been earmarked.