Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal on Tuesday told the Deputy Commissioners of the districts that no stone should be left unturned to ensure that the benefits of welfare schemes reach the common masses. At the same time, he also cautioned that no laxity should be tolerated in this regard.
Advocating the need to maintain perfect administrative discipline, Sukhbir asked all the deputy commissioners of the state to conduct surprise checks to control absenteeism.
“Surprise checks be conducted regularly so as to control absenteeism which causes harassment of general public and undue delay in the delivering of Government services to the people,” said Sukhbir.
In a meeting with all the Deputy Commissioners to review the implementation of welfare schemes initiated by the State Government, Sukhbir asked them to ensure distribution of health insurance cards to the beneficiaries under Bhagat Puran Singh Sehat Bima Yojana by the concerned officers involving the public representatives and gram Panchayats.
He also directed them to distribute all cards by May 15 and get feedback and verification from the beneficiaries about receipt of cards in all villages.
Sukhbir also instructed the DCs to launch awareness campaign about the benefits of health cards at village level by sub-divisional and block level officers and complete the exercise by 20 of this month.
Instructing the Excise and Taxation department to prepare two lakh health cards for traders by the end of this month, Sukhbir also gave similar instructions to the Agricultural Department to prepare about 3.25 lakh health cards for the farmers within this month.
Sukhbir said that under Rural Mission, the state Government would spend Rs1,977 crore of various development works out of which Rs714. 65 crore had already been released for the districts.
He also divulged that under urban mission, all municipal towns would be provided with all basic facilities at a cost of Rs3,500 crore.
Besides, the DCs have been directed to spend Rsfive crore from MNREGA in a month in each district on various development works as Rs500 crore has been set aside for the same under MNREGA.
Touching the aspect of skill training, he said that about 200 skill centers would be set up in the state of which half would be for women. He asked the DCs to locate visible and approachable places where such modern centers could come up.
He also announced that burial grounds for Christians and Muslims communities would be constructed by July this year and DCs would submit lists of those villages where such separate grounds need to be constructed.