Cong seeks views of panches on rural growth
Monday, 26/09/2011
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110926/punjab.htm
Punjab Pradesh Congress president Amarinder Singh has launched an exercise to reach out to 60,000 panches and sarpanches in the state to get their views on the issues of rural development and agriculture so that these are incorporated in the party poll manifesto.
“We are keen to involve village-level representatives to prepare the party’s road map for development”, explained Surinder Singla, chairman, media committee.
In a letter to panches and sarpanches of about 12,000 villages, Amarinder has said: “My understanding is that the Green Revolution has exhausted its potential. There is a need to design a new policy for agriculture and rural development to raise the level of income of rural people three to four times in a short span of time. “A new turn in the Indian economy has thrown up vast new opportunities for the farm sector to grow vegetables, fruits, pulses and set up dairy farms to cater to the needs of the expanding middle class, ready to spend money on quality food”.
Opining that facilities such as good schools and dispensaries should be provided in villages in one go, Amarinder has sought suggestions of the people on modernising rural Punjab, his topmost priority.
Amarinder has said in his letter that he had created Punjab Nirman Fund for comprehensive rural development. “But I could not implement my vision then.”
Congress leader and former finance minister Surinder Singla speaks to mediapersons in Bathinda on Sunday. A Tribune photograph Bathinda: Surinder Singla, former Finance Minister in the Congress regime, said here on Sunday that the Congress would focus on overall development of the Malwa region and promote the cotton-rich region as a textile hub.
During an interaction with the media, he said the Malwa region had an enormous potential for growth, but the ruling SAD-BJP combine had failed to tap the local resources. Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had done nothing beyond making an announcement on setting up a textile park, he said.
He said the Amarinder Singh regime had introduced the BT cotton that had turned Malwa into one of the foremost producers of cotton in the country.He said permission for the coal linkages for the coming thermal power plants had come during the Congress regime.
