Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal on Sunday announced to establish 11 new Government hostels across the state to provide more opportunities for education to the people of the oppressed and deprived sections of society.
The Chief Minister also announced to grant in principle approval for implementing the Scheduled Caste A and B categorization in educational institutions from the upcoming academic session. Apart from this, he announced that about 25,000 government jobs would soon be advertised and every year the backlog of Scheduled Castes will be filled and no posts will be allowed to remain vacant.
Manohar Lal was speaking as a chief guest in the state level function organised on the occasion of 621st birth anniversary of Sant Kabir Das at Jind.
The Chief Minister said that he has been carrying out equitable development in the state by following the couplet of Sant Kabir Das 'Na Kaahu Se Dosti-Na Kaahu Se Bair'.
“In the last four-and-half years, the present State Government has worked to change the system in Haryana. We do not evaluate on the basis of class, gender, caste or region. We have changed the system so that people would not have to visit government offices and more than 450 schemes and services have been made available online under one roof through Antyodaya Sewa Kendra, Saral Kendra or Atal Seva Kendra,” he said.
He said that about 32 lakh people have availed benefits of these schemes in last two years.
Manohar Lal also announced that from July 1, the State Government would organise tours for the people belonging to Scheduled Castes to visit the birth place of Sant Kabir Das and Sant Ravidas at Varanasi and pilgrimage of Maharshi Valmiki at Amritsar. For this, interested persons can get their registration done in the Deputy Commissioner's office and they would be provided with second class reserved tickets for Railway free of cost.
For this, initially, 100-100 devotees each from every assembly constituency will be given opportunity every year. This way, 9,000 pilgrims will visit these places in a year. It will be on first come, first serve basis and a family will be given this benefit only once, he said.
Describing the 2.5 crore population of the state as his family, the Chief Minister said that those, who are lagging behind in society, should be brought forward.
He said that the government is preparing such data that the needs of people right from birth to death are known to the government and government official will visit the person and provide the service required at his doorstep.
He said that on March 31 every year, the budget of Central and State Government schemes is lapsed due to ignorance of officials and people having no knowledge about it, which has stopped now.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the vision to provide house to every family by 2022 and the State Government is heading in the same direction, he said.
The Chief Minister further said that in the first week of July, the cards of 1.25 lakh BPL card holders will be given to them at their doorsteps. The phrase like “Sabka Sath Sabka Vikas” has been derived from the couplets of Sant Kabir Das. Sant Kabirs, at that time, gave a message of staying away from superstition and brotherhood, when the society was strained in chains of conservatism, he added.
He said that the present State Government have started celebrating the birth anniversaries of all the great men at the government level, be it Sant Kabir Das Jayanti, Sant Ravidas Jayanti or Maharishi Valmiki Jayanti or Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar Jayanti.
Manohar Lal announced the grant of Rs 35 lakh out of his discretionary funds for Sant Kabir Das Hostel, Jind.
He also announced a grant of Rs 5 lakh each to Bhurchi Samaj Sewa Samiti and other three institutions out of his discretionary funds. He said that the government has no shortage of funds. The government is serious about the development of every section of the society. For the last nearly five years, we have carried out development work in all 90 assembly assemblies, he added.
Speaking on the occasion, Finance Minister, Capt Abhimanyu said that the Haryana Government has done the task of reaching to the last person of the society. But, earlier this section was deprived of development and the former governments had been discriminating with this section.
Since the government was formed under the leadership of Chief Minister Manohar Lal, the government assured to support the poor and oppressed. Now the poor have come to believe that there is someone in the country and in the state to listen to them, he added.
He also congratulated the people present on the occasion of birth anniversary of Sant Kabir Das.
Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Krishan Kumar Bedi said that the Chief Minister has enhanced the pride of people belonging to poor society by celebrating the birth anniversaries of the saints and the gurus at government level.
Transport Minister Krishan Lal Panwar, Sirsa Member of Parliament (MP) Sunita Duggal and Sonepat MP Ramesh Kaushik, State President of BJP Scheduled Caste Morcha Ram Avtar Balmiki, OSD to Chief Minister, Amarjeet Singh also spoke on this occasion.