In poll mould, Badal govt to spruce up 72 Lambi villages

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, March 28

With the Assembly poll early next year, the cash-strapped state government is preparing to give a new look to all 72 villages in Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's constituency Lambi. 

On an average, Rs 3.5 crore is being spent on each village for carpeting streets, laying drainage lines and de-silting ponds, says Nawal Kumar, District Development and Panchayats Officer (DDPO), Muktsar. 

These works, underway in 30 villages, will be taken up in 42 more villages in the next phase. The Punjab Mandi Board, the Rural Development Department and the PWD (B&R) are the executing agencies. 

In Kangan Khera village, 82 houses are being constructed for poor families at an estimated cost of Rs 3.31 crore. “The works will be completed in four months and these villages will turn model villages,” says Nawal Kumar.

In contrast, other Assembly constituencies are to get Rs 25 crore each, which is not more than Rs 30-Rs 35 lakh per village, as announced by Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal in February.

At his Sangat Darshan functions in the Lambi constituency, the CM sanctions huge grants for various works such as gyms, drains, panchayat ghar and repair of schoolbuildings. He is scheduled to hold a series of such functions next month.

While the CM has officially adopted Rattakhera Vadda, Rattakhera Chhota, Kangan Khera in Lambi for development, his daughter-in-law and Union Minister Harsimrat Badal has adopted Mann village. Their native village Badal already wears the look of a town having a number of educational institutions, government buildings and wide roads.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) too has turned its focus on Lambi, much to the alarm of local Akali leaders.