Ludhiana: Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday said 10% of the total compensation for crop damage due to any natural calamity will now go to farm labourers in the state. Speaking after holding a Cabinet meeting here as part of his government’s ‘Sarkar Tuhade Dwar’ (government at your doorstep) programme, Mann said the decision was taken keeping in mind the problems faced by farm labourers, who lose work and income when a crop gets damaged due to heavy rain or hailstorm.
Mann said this decision is a gift to the working class, who toil to produce crops, ahead of the Labour Day on May 1. The first Cabinet meeting under the ‘Sarkar Tuhade Dwar’ programme was held at the Circuit House in Ludhiana, about 100 km from Chandigarh. Mann said most Cabinet meetings will now be held outside Chandigarh as it will give officials and ministers a chance to take feedback from people, listen to their grievances and address them on the spot.
He said Cabinet meetings will now be held in places like Moga, Mansa, Hoshiarpur and even in a large village. The government representatives will spend a day wherever it is held, he said at a press conference flanked by his ministers. ‘We have decided that whatever compensation government will give to farmers for crop damage due to unseasonal rain or hailstorm, out of the total, 10% will be given to farm labourers’, Mann said. ‘For example, if Rs 15,000 a acre is given as compensation, Rs 1,500 will be given to the labourers who were to work in the fields but could not as the crop got damaged because of the rain’, the chief minister said.
The chief minister said his government will soon start a drive to register the labourers so that they can get benefits from the various central and state-sponsored schemes. ‘We have directed our officers to visit labour chowks, construction sites and rural areas and meet labourers there and get them registered on the spot’, Mann said. ‘In the coming days, we will bring many pro-Punjab, pro-people initiatives’, he said. Targeting previous governments, he said, ‘We don’t leave any files pending. Earlier, files were pending for 2-3 years’, he claimed. ‘We are bringing the state back on the track of developmental so that Punjab once again becomes ‘rangla (vibrant)’.
The Cabinet also gave consent for sending the plea of six prisoners convicted for life, seeking premature release, to Governor Banwarilal Purohit for consideration and approval, according to an official statement. It approved the revision of pay scales of teachers in Punjab Agricultural University with effect from January 1, 2016. The disbursement of salary and pension to these employees will take place from April 2023. It accorded consent to create a new block – named Ramdas – by taking out 75 gram panchayats from Ajnala block in Amritsar district. The creation Ramdas block will give a boost to developmental activities in these 75 villages, the statement added.
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