CHANDIGARH: Amarinder Singh, Chief Minister of Punjab announced a development grant of Rs 208.40 crore for funding various infrastructure works in urban and rural areas of several districts in Malwa region on January 18.
According to an official release, under the Smart Village campaign and Urban Environment Improvement Plan (UEIP), the infrastructure work will be carried out in Barnala, Fatehgarh Sahib, Ludhiana, Patiala, SAS Nagar (Mohali) and Rupnagar districts.
The MLAs are asked to keep the development works within their constituencies on priority and are directed to submit the list of works to be undertaken to their concerned Deputy Commissioners by January 31, 2019.
Rs 5 crore will be granted to all the MLAs for rural areas in two instalments. The first installment will be used to start the development work and the remaining will be used after the completion which will be a subject to the condition of submission of utilisation certificate. Rs 300 crore will be used for the development works which has to be undertaken in the urban areas under UEIP.
A committee is formed, under the supervision of the chief minister comprising of 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.
The CM also announced that the state government will come up with a special scheme as early as possible regarding the debt waiver for the rural landless labourers, who were experiencing a financial distress due to the current agrarian crisis.