Jalandhar gets Rs10-crore bhawan, women park on Kabir Jayanti

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 24

In order to woo the Dalit votebank ahead of the 2022 Assembly poll, the Congress took various decisions to please around 22 lakh members of the Bhagat community members in the state on the occasion of Kabir Jayanti on Thursday.

Besides announcing a chair in the name of Sant Kabir in Amritsar, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, made two announcements for Jalandhar – a Bhagat Kabir Bhawan which would come up on 120-feet road on six kanal commercial land of the PUDA at a cost of Rs10 crore and an exclusive women sports park in Bhargo Camp — where the Bhagat community is largely concentrated.

Capt Amarinder’s speech was live streamed across four Kabir Temples in the city through huge screens, including the ones set up at Bhargo Camp, Tilak Nagar, Basti Bawa Khel and Ishwar Nagar, all falling in Jalandhar (West) constituency. The Bhagat community had gathered in all these temples for prayers today. All arrangements were made under the supervision of MLA Sushil Rinku.

Rinku said Bhagat Kabir Bhawan would have a 13,000 sq ft covered area and have a seating capacity of 500 persons. “The site is just 100 metres away from Babrik Chowk. The land has already been approved by the PUDA for the project after a meeting of the Empowered Committee. Even the work will be executed by the PUDA,” he said.

Rinku said, “Jalandhar women are engaged in making sports goods from homes. They weave volleyball nets, stitch footballs, strings of badminton rackets, cricket bats, among others, but they have never played these games. They are reluctant to go to public parks for physical exercises. We will develop a sports park exclusively for women and equip it with sports items for playing tennis, badminton, football, volleyball and a gym so that they can enjoy sports and maintain fitness. Most likely, this project will be handed over to the MC. I will ensure that the work gets started within our tenure.”

He said the site of the park falls at Bhargo Camp. “It’s 2-acre plot of the Central Government of which Bhargo Camp police station is also a part. This space was being used to dump concrete waste by residents. Recently, I deployed trucks to clean the park. The location is very good, but the land was lying unused for years,” said Rinku.

Hi-tech Kabir jhopri at Kashi

This Kabir Jayanti, the main attraction for the Bhagat community, which travelled to the revered place ‘Kashi’ to pay obeisance was the new high hi-tech jhopri. Rajesh Bhagat, who is the mahant of Mool Gaddi, said many people converged at the site on Thursday, which is of much importance to the community, as it was in this place that Kabir wrote holy verses and spread across the message for unity and end of casteism. “The moment anyone enters the jhopri, he can hear the recorded audio of Kabir ji’s bani,” the mahant said.