Ahead of the 2017 assembly elections, Punjab government today decided to extend the benefits of its Shagun scheme to those families who were earlier found ineligible.
A decision in this regard was taken at a meeting of Council of Ministers chaired by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal here.
"In view of hardships faced by the economically poor families due to non-submission of their applications on time due to certain unavoidable reasons, this decision would now enable to cover such hapless families during the current fiscal year ie 2016-17, who were earlier denied the facility of Shagun of Rs 15,000 w.E.F April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2016, a state government release said here.
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Notably, as per existing provision, the family could apply under this scheme for girls of marriageable age, a month prior and a month later from the day the wedding is solemnised.
The cabinet also created three separate boards for the welfare of Christian, Saini and Ramgharia communities, which would be represented as Christian Welfare Board, Saini Welfare Board and Ramgharia Welfare Board respectively.
These boards would look into the issues and problems faced by the respective communities and would recommend solution to their problems.
In another decision, the cabinet approved the creation of post of Senior Vice Chairman in all the boards and commissions set up by the state government.
The cabinet also gave a go ahead to the new Group-A and Group-C Service Rules for the Directorate of Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP) under Department of Welfare.
It may be recalled that the cabinet had already declared the Directorate of Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan as Nodal Department for the formulation and monitoring of the implementation of SCSP.
Initially, the service rules of Planning department were temporarily adopted for the services of new directorate until the formulation of its own service rules.
