Khattar announces horticulture centre in honour of Pulwama

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today announced that a horticultural centre in Jind district would be named after Captain Pawan Kumar who was killed by militants in Jammu and Kashmir last year.
Khattar made the announcement during a meeting of the Civil Military Liaison Conference at the Western Command Headquarters in Panchkula's Chandimandir.
Lt. Gen. Surender Singh, General Officer Commanding- in-Chief (GOC-in-C), Western Command, was also present at the meeting, an official release said.
The 23-year-old Army officer, Kumar, from the district, had died fighting militants in Kashmir's Pulwama district last year.
The 10 Para Special Forces officer was leading his men from the front in an operation in a 7-storey building in Pampore where at least three terrorists had holed up.

Khattar also said that an office of Zila Sainik Board would be set up in the newly created district of Charkhi Dadri.

Khattar said the state government had always been in the forefront of ensuring the welfare of serving soldiers, ex-servicemen and their dependents.
A separate Sainik and Ardh Sainik Welfare Department has been created with an independent administrative secretary, he said.
Besides, it has also been decided that all posts advertised by the state recruiting agencies would be hosted on the website of the Sainik and Ardh Sainik Welfare Department, to be launched shortly, so that ex-servicemen could benefit from seats reserved for them in various government departments, he said.

The department has tied up with the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) and the Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) for this purpose.
Lauding the efforts of the armed forces in safeguarding the borders of the country, the chief minister said they were always prepared to sacrifice their life to ensure a secure and bright future for the people of the country.
He also said the Western Command was the pride of the Indian Army and had made outstanding achievements in the last seven decades.
Talking about the state's contribution to the army, Khattar said Haryana was a small state with only two per cent of the country's population, yet its contribution to the armed forces of the country was ten per cent.

The chief minister said during the last 32 months of the present government, various facilities had been extended to serving soldiers, ex-servicemen and their dependants in the state. The ex-gratia grant to martyrs has been enhanced to Rs 50 lakh from Rs 20 lakh.
Scholarships for the students from Haryana, studying in the Rashtriya Indian Military College, Dehradun, had been enhanced from Rs 35,000 to Rs 50,000 per year per student from April 1, 2017, he said.
Complimenting the efforts of the Western Command for organising the Civil Military Liaison conference every year, he said it should be organised regularly as it provided a platform to both the government and the Army to take up various issues of mutual interest.

Lt. General Surender Singh thanked the state government for allotting five acres of land in Bahadurgarh for the Jai Jawan Awas Yojna and said that work on this project would be started soon.