New role for those ‘ignored’ during rejig: Punjab CM Channi

Sanjiv Kumar Bakshi

Hoshiarpur, October 17

Four former ministers who were not retained in the Cabinet during the recent reshuffle would be soon given organisational responsibilities ahead of the Assembly poll.

Announcing this during a visit to Hoshiarpur today, Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said the Phagwara byelection was won by a huge margin under ex-Industries Minister Sunder Sham Arora. “So, the organisational responsibility of the entire area will be handed over to him soon and the upcoming elections in the area will be fought under his leadership. Three other ministers will also be given similar responsibilities,” he said, without naming the remaining three ministers.

Notably, former ministers Balbir Singh Sidhu (Health), Gurpreet Singh Kangar (Revenue), Sunder Sham Arora (Industries), Sadhu Singh Dharamsot (Social Welfare) and Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi (Sports) were not retained in the Cabinet under Channi.

Channi was addressing a meeting of elected representatives of the Congress and representatives of various organisations at Arora’s residence.

He said despite less time, all-out efforts would be made to realise the dreams of people by fulfilling the remaining poll promises.

“As we are short on time, we have increased our pace of work. For Punjab’s overall development, we have reduced the sleeping time and now we will act faster together. We will neither sleep nor let the officers sleep,” he said.

He said the Cabinet meeting was scheduled to be held tomorrow and many important decisions would be taken in the interest of people.

Referring to the waiver of electricity bills up to 2 KW, Channi said in the next phase, important decisions would be taken to provide relief to people from hefty power bills. He said there was a need to prepare master plans for the development of cities and soon a decision in this regard would be taken.

Referring to the development projects and schemes in the area, Arora urged the CM to release Rs 10 crore to finish the pending projects in the city. Channi promised to release the funds immediately.

He also announced to inaugurate a medical college and a park in the area next month. “Even though it will take two years to build the government medical college, the classes will be started from the next session,” he said.

Channi also felicitated the Shivpuri workers who performed the last rites of the Covid-19 victims and also distributed financial assistance cheques to children who lost their parents due to Covid.

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