BADAL CONGRATULATES PUNJABIS ON RECEIVING GURU
MANYO
GRANTH JAGRITI YATRA IN PUNJAB
MOHALI MARCH 3, 2008
Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal here today congratulated
all the Punjabis on the historic moment to receive the Holy Relics
and the Weapons of the 10th Guru Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji Maharaj.
Mr. Badal was addressing a mammoth gathering of devotees at the
entry point of Mohali near YPS School to receive 'Guru Manyo Granth
Jagriti Yatra'.
While speaking on the occasion Mr. Badal said that we are fortunate
enough that we are celebrating 300th year of 'Guruta Gaddi Diwas'
of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji in our lifetime with the blessings
of the Almighty. He said that the Yatra reached Punjab after covering
151 cities in different states and would cover the entire Punjab
during next one and a half month to bring awareness amongst the
people especially the younger generations about the rich legacy
of Sikh religion and the great sacrifices made by Sri Guru Gobind
Singh Ji to serve the mankind with missionary zeal and disseminated
a message of universal brotherhood. He further appealed all the
sections of the society to celebrate this auspicious occasion
with full religions fervour.
On this occasion Mr.Surjit Singh Barnala, Governor Tamil Nadu
also paid his obeisance to the weapons of Sri Guru Gobind Singh
ji and hand written 'Bir Sahib' of Sri Guru Granth Sahib.
On this occasion Mr.Badal Honoured Mr. Parminder Singh Pasricha,
DGP of Maharastra and Chairman, Central National Development Committee
of Sri Hazoor Sahib, Nanded.
The prominent amongst others who were present on this occasion
included President SGPC Jathedar Avtar Singh, Secretary General
Prof. Prem Singh Chandumajra, Mr.Ujjagar Singh Badali, Mr.Balbir
Singh Sidhu (Both MLAs), Mr.Jasjit Singh Bani, Chairman Punjab
State Co-operative Bank. Jathedar Hardeep Singh, Member SGPC and
Jathedar Amrik Singh Mohali.
LOAN WAIVER-THE BIGGEST MISNOMER OF THE CENTURY
:BADAL
Chandigarh March, 3- The Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh
Badal today demanded that the ratio of relief in the so-called
debt waiver announced in the Union Budget should be made proportionate
to the contribution of the states to the central food kitty. "
If this is done, Punjab, which puts in over 50% of the foodgrains
in the national pool, will get Rs 30,000 crores out of the announced
scheme " declared Mr. Badal, adding that by doing this, the
center would be doing no favours to the state but would merely
be giving it its due.
He said that according to details gathered by him from the Government
of India and the State Government records, there was no such thing
as a" Loan waiver scheme" in the Union Budget and the
term is a huge fraud played on poor and innocent farmer's "What
has been done really is a mere "partial debt default readjustment
scheme" and there is nothing such as an 'across-the-board
loan waiver'. The term "Loan waiver" is the biggest
misnomer of the century," said the Mr. Badal addressing media
persons here today.
Elaborating his point, Mr. Badal said that scheme partially
covered only those farmers who had defaulted on loans taken as
on 31 March 2007 and due for repayment on 31 December 2007. The
total debt liability of Punjab Farmers is Rs. 35,000 crore (as
on date) and they would get relief not exceeding 3% of their total
burden. The maximum benefit that Punjab will get out of the debt
default readjustment scheme worth Rs. 60,000 crore is a meager
1223 crore, and that too in staggered book adjustments of Institutional
Loans. The Chief Minister repeated that this amount is only 3%
of the total debt liability of 35000 crore of the Punjab farmers
and merely 2% of the total so called waiver announced.
It is a well-known fact that Institutional crop loans are re-energized
every six months by different banking institutions and thus these
are not the real source of farmers' woes. " The real back
breaking burden comes from non-institutional loans taken by the
Farmers from Private money lenders. Since, the interests of both
the lenders and borrowers have a common ground and exist on long-term
relationship basis, the Centre should release funds to meet these
loans, directly to the lenders or through the farmers. The total
amount of these loans comes to about Rs. 12,000 crores.
He said that the poorest of the poor have been left out of the
scheme, as there is no provision for the 15 lakh farm labour or
for hundreds of thousands of landless farmers in the proposed
scheme.
Mr. Badal, reeled of data to substantiate his point. He said,
that actually, Punjab farmers stand to lose on account of the
joint land holding system prevalent in the State. These joint
land holding usually exceed five acres, rendering most of the
farmers ineligible. The total land holdings in the state of Punjab
are ten lakhs and since these are mentioned as joint ownerships
they far exceed five acres limit, even though individually many
farmers own less than five acres. Thus, nearly 80 % of the farmers
in ten lakh holdings would be left out of the ambit of the so
called central scheme.
Mr. Badal also made several suggestions to make what he called
" the cosmetic measure" truly meaningful. One of these
relates to making individual ownership the criterion. He also
wanted the landless farmers to be brought within the parameters
of the loan readjustment scheme. Mr Badal demanded that the rate
of interest on farm loans should also be brought down to four
per cent.
PUNJAB GOVERNMENT SIGNS AN AGREEMENT WITH HSCC
FOR DEVELOPMENT OF BFUHS & GOVERNMENT MEDICAL COLLEGE AMRITSAR
CHANDIGARH MARCH 3, 2008
An agreement was signed today between the Hospital Services
Consultancy Corporation (HSCC) (a Government of India Enterprise)
and Punjab Government for providing consultancy for construction
of Buildings in the Government Guru Ram Dass Medical College &
Hospital Complex Amritsar and Baba Farid University of Health
Sciences (BFUHS), Faridkot here at Punjab Bhawan .
The agreement was signed in the presence of Punjab Chief Minister
Mr.Parkash Singh Badal, Medical Education & Research Minister
Tikshan Sood, Vice Chairman State Planning Board Prof. JS Bajaj
and Media Advisor to Chief Minister Harcharan Bains. Executive
Director HSCC Sanjiv Sood and Secretary Medical Education &
Research Jagjit Puri signed the agreement on the behalf of the
HSCC and Punjab Government respectively.
Speaking on the occasion, Punjab Chief Minister Mr.Parkash Singh
Badal said that with the upgradation of these two prestigious
medical institutions, medical education and health care would
go a long way in setting up a new bench mark in the quality health
delivery system not only in the northern India but also in the
Indian sub continent. He said that Punjab government was committed
to upgrade the health and medical facilities to provide better
and affordable health services to the people being a core sector.
While congratulating the department, the Chief Minster urged
HSCC to complete the given work in a stipulated time frame. He
also praised the initiative of Prof. Bajaj for having taken special
pains to have these projects formulated.
Vice Chairman State Planning Board Prof. JS Bajaj stated that
the Medical Education & Research department alongwith the
BFUHS would be spending a sum of Rs.144.16 crore on the construction
of new buildings of BFUHS and the Government Medical College Amritsar.
Of this, Rs.77.10 crore would be spent on the new buildings of
the Govt. Medical College Amritsar with an area of 27450 sq. meters
and Rs.67.06 crore on BFUHS campus with an area of 39300 sq. meters.
In his address, Medical Education & Research Minister Tikshan
Sood said that the initiative of the state government was likely
to go a long way in improving the infrastructure of the State's
oldest century old Medical College in Amritsar and would qualitatively
improve the delivery of Medical Education & health care services
for the people of the area. In Amritsar, the state government
would be spending Rs.2 crore on construction of additional floors
in the Bebe Nanaki Mother & Child Care Centre in the premises
of the Govt. Medical College Amritsar. Rs. 21.60 crore would be
spent on the Guru Tegh Bahadur Block for Imaging & Diagnostic
Services with a super-speciality ward which would have latest
diagnostic equipment like CT Scan, MRI etc. A sum of Rs.3 crore
would be spent on construction of Swami Vivekanand Drug Dependence
Treatment Centre to provide counseling, treatment and rehabilitation
of drug dependents.
Mr.Sood further said that a new building for the Nursing College
was also proposed at a cost of Rs.4.00 crore whereas Rs.12.40
crore would be spent on Hospital Information System, Picture Archival
Communication System, Laundry, CSSD and other logistics of the
complex. With the construction of the building of Nursing College,
the college would seek to start Post-Graduate courses in Nursing
to overcome the shortage of trained nursing teachers in the state.
An auditorium with the state-of-art facilities is also proposed
in the plans as a unique facility of a prayer room in every ward
with audio connectivity for relay of devotional music.
Mr. Sood assured the Chief Minister that the works would be
commissioned after following due procedure shortly and completed
within 18 to 24 months. Punjab Infrastructure Development Board
would be the nodal agency for the implementation of this prestigious
project.
Meanwhile the Chairman HSCC VC Sharma assured the Chief Minster
and all other present that they would live upto the confidence
reposed in them by the Punjab Government.
BADAL ANNOUNCES RS.1 LAKH EACH FOR FOUR U-19 WORLD CHAMPIONS
FROM PUNJAB
CHANDIGARH MARCH 3, 2008
Punjab Chief Minister Mr.Parkah Singh Badal today announced
Rs.1 lakh cash award each for four players from Punjab viz. Siddarth
Kaul, Taruvar Kohli, Mandeep Singh and Parry Goyal of the Under-19
Indian Cricket Team which won the world cup at Kuala Lumpur yesterday
by defeating South Africa in the final.
Congratulating these young players on their rare fete, Mr.Badal
said that they had really done both India and Punjab proud. The
Chief Minister said that he was confident that these dynamic players
through their outstanding performance would one day certainly
don the cap of senior team. Mr. Badal also congratulated the other
members of the team and their coach Mr.Manish Bali and stated
that the state government would also felicitate them in a befitting
manner at a function to be organized later.
…