CM administers oath to Zila Parishad members

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, February 12

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar gave out a message of unity during the state-level swearing-in ceremony of the newly elected members of the Zila Parishad (ZP) and the Panchayat Samitis (PS) in Sector 32 today.

He gave the slogan gaun ek, gramin ek (one village, villagers one).

The Chief Minister asked the members to work towards making Haryana an ideal state.

As many as 3,413 members, including 416 ZP and 2,997 PS, had to take oath, but several gave it a miss. The administration did not have the exact record of the members who took the oath.

Khattar announced to hike the honorarium of members, vice-chairpersons and chairpersons of the PSs and ZPs and said the salary of the PS member would now be Rs1,600 from Rs1,250 per month. For the vice-chairpersons, it would be Rs3,500 from Rs2,500 and for the chairperson of PS, Rs7,500 from Rs6,000. Similarly, the honorarium for the member of the ZP would be Rs3,000 from Rs2,500. For, vice-chairperson, it would be between Rs6,000 and Rs7,500 and chairperson, Rs7,500 and Rs10,000.

Will support Bill for education criteria

Khattar, meanwhile, said it was a matter of pride that the state had educated panchayats and it would boost the development of the state. He said if the Union government passed a Bill on the education criteria for contesting the Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha elections, the state government would support it. Finance Minister Capt Abhimanyu, Panchayats Development Minister OP Dhankar, CPS Bakhshish Singh Virk among others praised the government for fixing the education criteria.

Dhankar said after the introduction of the education criteria, there has been a great change in the results of the PRI elections, as more women, Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes candidates had been elected against the reserved seats in these categories. He said this time, representatives had been elected from common families and their average age was between 34 and 36.