Khattar announces incentives for SCs on Ambedkar Jayanti

Marking the 125th birth anniversary of Dr B R Ambedkar, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattra today announced a slew of incentives for people belonging to Scheduled Castes communities including waiver of tuition fees for SC girls at graduation level.
He also announced increase in the dress allowance for SC students of Std I-V to Rs 800 from Rs 400 per student per annum.
"The rate of dress allowance from Std VI-X would be Rs 1000 per student per annum," Khattar added.
In addition, the grant for marriage of girls of widows belonging to Scheduled Castes would be increased from Rs 41,000 to Rs 51,000.

For 'safai karamcharis' who mostly belong to Schedule Caste communities, the Chief Minister announced that government would soon constitute a 'Safai Karamchari Ayog' and for karamcharis working in villages, two pairs of uniform and one pair of shoes will be provided to them like their counterparts in towns.
"The State government will also build concrete roads within one year in all those 843 villages where Scheduled Castes population is more than 40 per cent," he said.

He said that Government will also provide upto Rs one crore loan to SC youth without guarantee for setting up small industries and for this purpose training would be imparted to SC youth.

The Chief Minister also laid the foundation stone of the first floor of Ambedkar Bhawan and announced a grant of Rs 21 lakh for its construction.
He also named the centrally-sponsored post metric scholarship for students belonging to Scheduled Castes and renamed the Skill Development University after Ambedkar.
Paying rich tributes to Ambedkar, Khattar said that the "Father of Indian Constitution" was a "messiah of the downtrodden."
Addressing a gathering here, Khattar said that the backlog in government jobs for persons from reserved categories would soon be filled.
Responding to questions on the ongoing Punjabi versus
outsider debate taking centre stage ahead of the February 4 Assembly polls in the neighbouring Punjab, Khattar said he was in favour of the chief minister being from the state.

"CM may be of any party, but he should be of that state, I agree with this. If he is from Haryana or any other state (the next Punjab CM) that thing has no meaning. Here in Haryana, will we like that a person from other state becomes the CM here? Will we want that, we will never want that...," he said.
To another question about the officers who were found to be negligent in their duty during the Jat stir in February last year, Khattar said the suspension of those officials who were issued show cause notices may be revoked if their replies were found to be satisfactory.

He, however, clarified that revoking their suspension will not mean that cases, if any, registered against them, will also be taken back.
Replying to other queries, Khattar said the state government was working on a project of State Resident Data Base and removing flaws in the system to resolve land disputes.
He said the project had been hanging fire for many years and he wanted to complete it at the earliest so as to have detailed information about all residents as it would help in providing them various services like admission to schools, immunisation and death certificates at their doorsteps.

Khattar said there were a large number of cases of land disputes.
He said the system had many flaws. So, a software was being developed to effectively deal with the issue, he said.
On his biggest achievement as chief minister, he said it was the restoration of people's faith in the government.
To another question, Khattar, a first-time MLA from Karnal, said as a child he had the intuition that he would do something unusual in life but not that he would get the opportunity to serve a state as its chief minister.
He also recalled how he joined the RSS, became its parcharak and was devoted to social service before taking a plunge into politics.

He said the state government was preparing a scheme to provide affordable meals to workers and the poor living in 'bastis' and added that a proposal was being considered to increase the amount of accident insurance for state roadways bus passengers.
He also said the government has set a target to develop two lakh affordable houses under the 'Deen Dayal Jan Awas Yojana' by 2019. The 'Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana' of the central government aims to provide housing for all by 2022.
Khattar said the state government was considering giving employment opportunities to outstanding sportspersons in the state in not only the police department but other departments as well. He said a committee has already been constituted to streamline the process and its first meeting has already been held.

(REOPENS DES35)
In reply to a question concerning the issue of a separate High Court of the state, he said Haryana had three different demands.
"First the state should have a separate High Court within the existing building which can be divided between Punjab and Haryana in the ratio of 60:40 as in case of Vidhan Sabha building. Second, the High Court should have judges in 50:50 ratio.
"Third demand is that the state should have a separate bench of the High Court at a place suggested by the Haryana government and convenient to the people. There was another issue of cases concerning Chandigarh," he said.

On the issue of a separate capital, he said at present Chandigarh is the common capital of both Haryana and Punjab and Haryana has its right over Chandigarh.
However, he said it can't be said what both Punjab and Haryana would decide in future.
On the Public Distribution System (PDS), he said it was on November 1 last year that biometric system was introduced for the PDS to make it more transparent but it did not function smoothly because of technical reasons.
Now it would again be made functional within one or two months after removing the snags, he said.

He said the system of biometric attendance would also be introduced in Anganwadi Kendras as it would help in checking corruption.
On which Haryana BJP leaders would be deputed for campaigning in Punjab elections, Khattar said BJP would contest on only 23 seats in the state.
"Generally, the central leaders go for campaigning but in case the party high command deputes any leader from Haryana, he/she will go," he said.
On the long queues in banks to deposit fee with application forms of Haryana Staff Selection Commission, the chief minister said there are always more applications than jobs.
He said the state government was considering a proposal that employment exchange should have a system to transfer the fee of those already registered with it for employment. This would make things easy, he added.