With an eye on 2017 Punjab polls, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal on Tuesday held a high-level meeting to review the development schemes with all Deputy Commissioners. He asked the officers to meticulously implement and oversee the execution of State Government’s all progress centric schemes and projects.
Driving home his point in clear-cut manner while reviewing various development-oriented programmes and schemes, Sukhbir said that no dearth of funds would be allowed to come in the way of proper execution of such schemes but also warned that no laxity would be tolerated either.
Sukhbir, putting some Deputy Commissioners on his radar, asked them to come out of comfort and perform to the aspirations of public as well as Government. He asked the State Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal to fix criteria for accessing their performance and link it to their annual confidential reports (ACRs).
He also directed them to pay specialised attention to complete 100 per cent works falling under the ambit of rural and urban missions by November, this year, while adding that their performances would be adjudged on this parameter in the next meeting.
To check the absenteeism among officials, Sukhbir directed the DCs to have frequent inspections in offices including educational institutions and hospitals besides at public dealing windows.
Assigning at least 100 surprise visits in Government offices in a month, he directed them to mark absent and send recommendation to the concerned department for deduction of one day salary from the account of absentees. Besides, the inspection teams could recommend break in service for habitual offenders found truant often form duty.
During the meeting, it was apprised that under Bhagat Puran Singh Sehat Bima Yojna (BPSSBY), more than 25 lakh cards have been distributed among the beneficiaries and more than 47,000 patients have availed the medical benefits to the tune of Rs42.86 crore under the scheme.
Sukhbir instructed that the implementation of the scheme should be monitored at district and constituency basis in order to identify the real number of beneficiaries and make them avail the benefits.
Coming to the new Atta-Dal scheme, Sukhbir asked the DCs to make sure that the wheat-dal should be distributed amongst the beneficiaries by the village level vigilance committees.
He also specially instructed that the scheme must be monitored through SDMs and the whole process should be videographed so as to ensure transparency and every month the DCs should send a report to his office.
Reviewing the rural water supply, Sukhbir directed the DCs to hold meetings with the sarpanches to get feedback from them ensuring potable water supply in each village. He also asked the DCs to specially focus on the disbursement of pensions timely in their respective domains.
Touching MGNREGA scheme, Sukhbir was appraised that out of a total budget outlay of Rs500 crore, Rs308 crore had been utilised for various development centric works.
He instructed them to spend more money under the scheme and focus on dhanis besides constructing concretised streets and drains. He directed them to spend Rs1,000 crore till December this on carrying out projects of developmental nature in the villages.