Expedite construction of toilets, MC official told

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, July 16

Lok Sabha member from Jalandhar Chaudhary Santokh Singh on Monday reprimanded the health officer of the Municipal Corporation for the slow pace of work for constructing public toilets in the city.

Chairing a meeting of the District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee (DDCMC) here at the District Administrative Complex, the MP, accompanied by MLA Rajinder Beri, Mayor Jagdish Raja and Deputy Commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma, reviewed the ongoing works of all departments, including Education, Agriculture, Social Welfare, Health, Municipal Corporation, Water Supply and Sanitation and Rural Development.

As Chaudhary asked the MC officer regarding the time frame by which the work would be done, the reply came that it would be done in three months. At this, Congress leaders present in the meeting asked him to explain that if the same project could not be done in two years, how would it be done now in three months.

Likewise, Santokh Singh also asked officials of the Health Department to make newly-installed ventilators at the local Civil Hospital operational and explore the feasibility of further expansion of X-ray machines installed there, so that people could be facilitated.

“What is the advantage of having a facility when we have not even begun making use of it?” he asked them.

The next to come in the line of fire were the officials of the Social Security Department. The MP and the MLAs said the officials were not clearing pension cases for months together and applications had been lying pending with the staff.

Chaudhary and Beri said even the cases in which they had made recommendations were not cleared. At this, the DC pulled up the staff and asked them to ensure that all pending cases of pensions must be cleared within a week.

The Lok Sabha MP also asked the Employment Generation and Panchayat departments to speed up the work of providing jobs to the unemployed youth under the Ghar-Ghar Rozgar Yojna. Santokh Singh also reviewed the Smart City project under which integrated command and control centre, roof top solar power panels, development of parks and improvement of road junctions, enhancement of facilities at the city railway station and other projects were to be covered in the first phase.

The MP also asked the officials to accord top most priority to the works of PWD so that benefits of pro-people and development-oriented policies of the state government reach people at the grass-roots level.

He said for the same, the officials should dedicatedly work to make sure that underprivileged and weaker sections of society avail the benefits of the government policies.

Batting for optimum utilisation of funds under government schemes, the MP said it would ensure that money was spent in a right direction. He also underlined the need for encouraging self-help groups by starting a special drive for setting up such groups in villages, thereby empowering women. He also stressed on the need for optimum utilisation of the MNREGA scheme for giving a major push to rural development in the district.

Prominent among those present in the meeting included Mayor Jagdish Raj Raja, Additional Deputy Commissioner Jatinder Jorwal, Sub Divisional Magistrates Paramveer Singh, Navneet Kaur Bal and Jagjit Singh, Assistant Collector (under training) Himanshu Jain, District Development and Panchayat Officer Iqbalpreet Singh Sahota, District Guidance Counsellor Surjit Lal and Chief Agriculture Officer Balwinder Singh Cheena.