Attari/Chandigarh, October 7
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal today said unemployment was one of the biggest problems in the border areas and that the next SAD government would implement a special industrial package for the border belt along-with filling three lakh vacant government jobs to provide gainful employment to the youth.
Twenty three year old Sukhjit Kaur summed up the problem during the SAD president’s door-to-door visit programme in Cheecha village, saying “my father is unable to work. My mother is a house wife. Both my brothers are unemployed. They need jobs for this family to prosper”. Badal assured her that besides bringing industry into the border area by giving appropriate incentives, the next SAD government was committed to filling up three lakh vacant government jobs within one year of government formation. “We also have a plan to skill our youth by establishing centers of the proposed World Skill University in each district. Youth will also be eligible to become entrepreneurs by availing of a proposed Rs ten lakh interest free loan”.
Jaswant Singh of Cheecha also apprised Badal of another pressing problem in the border belt. He said with drugs being sold with impunity, drug addicts were also causing problems. These addicts are robbing motor-pumps, wires and even metal objects to purchase drugs. This has created a fear in the villages with women apprehensive of setting foot out of their homes after dark”.
The SAD president, who visited five households in the village, urged people to list the five top most expectations from the next SAD government in forms given to them. Urging the people to fill the forms, he said after taking feedback from the grass root level the party would finalize its election manifesto and release the same on November 1.
Badal also told newsmen that he was pained after visiting the households. “The women folk told me that the open sale of drugs is destroying an entire generation. They also expressed worry at their sons not getting jobs leading to depression and falling prey to the drug mafia”. He said people also expressed the need to revive the social welfare benefits initiated by former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. “Everywhere I go, the people tell me social benefits have been severely diluted or stopped altogether”. He said people were telling him that they were getting 30 kg of wheat during the SAD tenure but now getting only 10 kg. “I assure to increase this to 50 kg at the rate of Rs 4 per kg once our government is formed”.
A village shopkeeper told the SAD president that education and medical facilities should be given free of cost to the people. He said private school education had become out of reach even as super specialist medical facilities were very costly. Badal assured to make a detailed plan to ensure top class education and medical facilities could be extended to the people. “We will make it compulsory for all private schools to reserve 50 per cent seats for poor students. We are also committed to establishing medical colleges in each district which will bring super specialist services close to the doorsteps of people”.
