Setting 15-day deadline for the officers, Punjab Rural Development and Panchayat Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa on Monday gave a challenging task to clean up all the ponds situated in the villages of the State.
The instructions, to the Department’s officers, were issued by the Minister during the video conferencing session. He apprised the officers that Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has asked to execute this cleanliness drive on a mission mode under ‘Punjab Tandarust Mission’.
He said that the village ponds are one of the vital parts of the village development as the pond water provides many water-related basic amenities to the villagers. Similarly, ponds water helps in raising the water table, he said.
“During this campaign, first the water of the ponds would be drained out and silt would be cleaned up from the base of the ponds. They have only 20 days left to execute this campaign as with the arrival of raining season, ponds would be filled up with the water and digging in the ponds would not be possible to clean up the silt,” he said.
Bajwa said that he will personally monitor the progress on this campaign every day in the evening whereas the Chief Minister would also supervise the advancement in this regard on every third day.
“The efficient officers would be rewarded whereas the officers showing dismal performance would be brought to books,” he said.
The state Principal Secretary (Rural Development and Panchayat Department) Anurag Verma instructed the officers to initiate this campaign on June 5 on war footing after having meetings with the concerned Panchayats and Social Work Organizations of the area.
He asked the officers to send progress reports with photographs on every evening to the Head Office.
Punjab Tandarust Mission director Kahan Singh Pannu also persuaded the officers to execute this campaign with ‘Kar Sewa’ like missionary zeal. “I myself would visit every district of the State and would encourage the Panchayats, Social Work Organizations and the officers who are executing this campaign,” he said while assuring the officers that every Department of the state and district administration would fully cooperate with them in completing this campaign within time frame.