BARNALA: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Singh Badal today announced that all social welfare schemes which had been scrapped and curtailed during Congress rule would be restarted even as he announced that lakhs of scrapped blue cards which gave access to ration to the poor would be restored within one month of formation of the SAD-BSP alliance government.
The SAD President, who addressed a number of public gatherings in favour of party candidate Kulwant Singh Kanta, said the Congress government had played a fraud on the poor by dispossessing lakhs of them of the blue card facility which entitled them to subsidized ration under the atta-dal scheme. He said it was equally shocking that chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, who was fond of misusing the scheduled caste card, had not corrected the injustice meted out to the scheduled caste community as well as the poor. “Channi also refused to come to the aid of scheduled caste students who were robbed of their SC scholarship fee and has done nothing to fill up the backlog in government vacancies for scheduled caste candidates. Now people will ask him why he discriminated against the scheduled caste community”, Mr Badal said while assuring that all facilities taken away from the SC community and the poor would be restored once the SAD-BSP government was formed.
Asserting that the SAD had always worked for the welfare of the poor and would continue to do so, Mr Badal said “during our last stint in power we provided access to round the clock power to everyone. This time we are committed to reducing the cost of power and also providing 400 units of power free of cost to all consumers. This will reduce your household expenditure considerably”. He also announced that women head of below poverty line families would also be entitled to Rs 2, 000 per month. “Besides this we are committed to providing a medical insurance cover of Rs ten lakh per annum to all families”, he added.
The SAD President also assured to give a fillip to self employment. “In villages we will provide women interest free loans to purchase ten milch animals. Similarly youth will be provided an interest free loan of Rs five lakh to encourage them to become entrepreneurs”. He also announced that rural youth passing out from government schools would be provided 33 per cent reservation in technical institutions and that the State would look after their education.
Answering a query, Mr Badal said AAP Convener Arvind Kejriwal was befooling people by stating that he was not aware of the release orders of Prof Devinderpal Bhullar which were pending before him. “The truth is that despite the recommendations of a committee that Prof Bhullar be released the AAP government has rejected the case three times”. He also asked Kejriwal to explain why his party had given as many as 60 tickets to turn coats from Congress and SAD and why it had given six tickets in Ludhiana to candidates with a criminal track record. “Kejriwal promised to give tickets to ordinary persons but the truth is that he has sold the party tickets and pocketed hundreds of crores of ill gotten wealth”.