Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday promised to set up a Special Task Force within 100 days for redressing public grievances if his party is voted to power in the state next year.
“The task force will work under the direct control of the Chief Minister. It will follow up every case and take it to logical conclusion,” said Capt Amarinder while interacting with the people of Dera Bassi assembly segment under his ‘Halqe Vich Captain’ programme.
Capt Amarinder, while talking to the media persons later, claimed that his interactive programme with the people is “quite different from the ‘Sangat Darshan’ programme of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal”.
Claiming that the Sangat Darshan programmes are “complete failure”, the former chief minister said: “Had the Chief Minister’s programmes been successful, people would not have thronged to my meetings with their problems and complaints.”
Most of the complaints and problems raised during the interactive sessions are registration of false cases, lack of basic amenities, alleged high handedness of the Akalis towards Congressmen and lack of basic amenities, Capt Amarinder claimed.
He said that the issues of unemployment and drug addiction are also raised by the people. “There is a need for urgent and immediate pro-industry policies, not only will it help hold back industries moving out of Punjab but also attract new industries that will help create thousands of jobs,” he said.
Capt Amarinder’s spokesperson said that the party chief heard out the problems of more than 2500 local residents who had
gathered to meet him, and the registration desks at the venue were abuzz all morning with residents filling forms with their grievances, against a receipt and a stamp of Captain’s assurance.
“Infrastructure woes were of utmost priority for the residents with many complaining about poor condition of roads, schools and hospitals. Capt Amarinder ensured that he’ll do whatever it takes to resolve the same once in power.
He told that whatever funds are required for road and infrastructure development, I’ll facilitate that,” said the spokesperson.
Ahead of the assembly polls next year, Capt Amarinder has launched a 24-week-long outreach programme — ‘Halke Vich Captain’ — which started on June 19 from Jalalabad, the assembly constituency of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal.
Under this programme, the state Congress chief will spend one full day in each of 117 halkes (assembly constituencies) reaching out to more than two crore people and establishing direct contact with more than five lakh people.
To ensure that the
grievances are recorded for future reference and tracking, a receipt was provided for every grievance form filled and submitted.
An interactive voice response (IVR) in Capt Amarinder’s voice will be sent within 72 hours of this submission along with an SMS confirmation. People can use the receipt number to check the status of their concerns online.
later in the day, Capt Amarinder also interacted with the constituency level party workers, where they shared constituency issues and suggestions for the party campaign and also sought his intervention and
advice.