Himachal Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Tuesday performed the foundation stone laying ceremony of two developmental projects at Dhaneta and also inaugurated a drinking water Scheme for Nadaun assembly constituency of district Hamirpur.
Addressing a public meeting in Dhaneta, the Chief Minister said that the government had made a provision of Rs. 25 crore for Dhaneta College, adding that an indoor stadium would also be built in Kharidi in Nadaun assembly constituency.
Sukhu said that the present government inherited a huge debt burden from the previous BJP government, but now the economy of Himachal Pradesh was slowly coming back on track and there has been an improvement of 20 percent in the state's financial health in just one year.
The state witnessed unprecedented disaster during the monsoon season, due to which 16 thousand families were affected. Despite limited financial resources, the state government changed the rules to resettle the affected people and increased the compensation manifold. Himachal didn't receive any special relief package from the Center to deal with the disaster. The state government had sent claims of about Rs. 10,000 crores related to monsoon losses to the central government. 'I have personally met Union Home Minister and senior union JP leaders in this regard but the State BJP leaders were creating hurdles in getting the funds released.
Sukhu said that the state government was holding Revenue Lok Adalats to settle the pending revenue cases. More than 65,000 partition and mutation cases have been settled so far in these Adalats whereas more than three and a half thousand pending cases of partition have been settled. It was for the first time a government is making serious efforts in this direction, he remarked.
"The government was going to make 20,000 recruitments in various government departments and the JOA (IT) exam result will be declared soon. The state government fought this battle till the Supreme Court with the decision in its favor," he said. Sukhu said that women's reservation in police recruitment has been increased to 30 percent. Efforts were also being made by the state government to provide self-employment opportunities.
The Congress Party had promised to bring a start-up scheme for the youth during elections. Fulfilling the same, the first phase of Rs. 680 crore Rajiv Gandhi Self-Employment Start-up Scheme has been launched wherein 50 percent subsidy was being provided to the youth for the purchase of e-taxi. Apart from this, the state government will also provide financial assistance for setting up solar energy projects and will purchase electricity from them for 25 years, to ensure fixed income to the youth. For the economic prosperity of farmers, a new scheme will be introduced in the upcoming budget session as well. He said that the state government has made a historic increase in the price of milk purchase by Rs 6 per litre.