Amarinder announces Rs 208 cr grant for Malwa region

Chandigarh, January 18

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday announced a development grant of Rs 208.40 crore for funding various infrastructure works in rural and urban areas of several districts in Malwa region.

The infrastructure work would be carried out in Barnala, Fatehgarh Sahib, Ludhiana, Patiala, SAS Nagar (Mohali) and Rupnagar districts under the umbrella programme of Smart Village campaign and Urban Environment Improvement Plan (UEIP), according to an official release.

The announcement came during pre-budget deliberations with Congress MLAs of Malwa-I comprising these districts, the release said.

The Chief Minister asked the MLAs to prioritise the development works within their Assembly constituencies and submit the list of works to be undertaken to their concerned Deputy Commissioners by January 31, 2019.

He said rural and urban infrastructure works would be executed through the Rural Development and Panchayats Department and the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board, respectively.

He said all the MLAs will get a grant of Rs 5 crore for rural areas in two instalments, of which the first would be given at the start of development work and the remaining after completion, subject to the condition of submission of utilisation certificate.

Another Rs 300 crore would be spent on the development works to be undertaken in the urban areas under UEIP.

The chief minister also constituted a committee comprising Financial Commissioner Revenue, Principal Secretary Rural Development and Panchayats, Secretary Industries, besides MLAs of Rajpura, Ghanaur and Fatehgarh Sahib, to suggest modalities to identify suitable land for setting up of a mega industrial park at Rajpura over an area of 1,000 acres.

Dispelling the apprehensions of MLAs regarding hefty electricity bills raised by the power utility PSPCL to the SC domestic consumers to whom the state had extended the facility of free 200 units, the CM said that he had already asked the power minister to examine the matter and find a viable solution.

The CM also announced that the state government would soon come up with a special scheme of debt waiver for the rural landless labourers, who were passing through acute financial distress due to the current agrarian crisis. PTI