The Manohar lal Khattar Government in Haryana would function from the land of splendid mountains, Himachal as the Chief Minister along with his entire cabinet and senior bureaucrats on Friday left for three-day winter sojourn to Timber Trail Heights from December 15-17.
Khattar took a luxury bus of Haryana roadways along with his cabinet colleagues and senior officers to the upscale Timber Trail resort in Parwanoo where the top brass of State Government plans to prepare a blueprint of new Haryana through deliberations on various issues of development.
The three-day chintan -shivir which is likely to cost the state exchequer more than Rs 12 lakh has attracted sharp criticism from the opposition parties.
All cabinet ministers except Anil Vij and Capt Abhimanyu accompanied the Chief Minister during his bus journey to Timber Trail Heights, a famous tourist attraction located at the foothills of Shivalik Ranges in Parwanoo. The two cabinet ministers reached Parwanoo by their cars.
The Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues who are already under fire for undertaking foreign tours and wasting public money, have maintained that the Himachal sojourn is planned for evaluation of works undertaken under BJP led Haryana Government’s three years rule and to prepare a roadmap for next two years.
Eyeing 2019 assembly and parliamentary polls, the BJP Government hopes to infuse new energy in ministers and bureaucrats and strengthen the coordination between them to expedite the progress of development works in next two years.
Apart from the Chief Minister, former Governors, RSS leaders, young entrepreneurs, senior bureaucrats and other experts will address various sessions to be organized during the three-day exercise. All MlAs have been asked to attend the session on the concluding day of the chintan-shivir.
The BJP led Haryana Government had completed three years in office on October 26 this year. Even as the tenure of first BJP Government in Haryana was replete with controversies and fiascos including the violent Jat quota stir last year and mishandling of dera violence issue this year, the State Government plans to focus on pushing its development agenda and expedite pace of development works in next two years.
Before boarding the bus, the Chief Minister Manohar lal while talking to the mediapersons here said it was decided to organzing the chintan- shivir at an isolated and peaceful place so that the issues of public interest could be discussed without any disturbance.
Instead of going separately, we decided to go Parwanoo by bus as this would also help in instilling a sense of team, he said.
When asked to comment on the statement made by the opposition parties dubbing the chintan- shivir as a gimmick and wastage of public money, the Chief Minister hits back saying that the opposition had no faith in such programmes as being organized to take stock of the performance of the State Government so far.
The opposition had nothing to review their performance as no progress was made during their tenure. They were just concerned for their own development and of their families, he said.
Apart from reviewing three year tenure of the present State Government, targets to be achieved during the next two years would also finalized with consultation with the Ministers and the officers during the chintan- shivir. The vision 2030 prepared by the State Government would also be discussed, added the Chief Minister.