Badal announces plans to provide wheat to poor at Re.1 per kilo

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Friday said that his government would provide wheat at Re.1 per kilogram instead of Rs. 4 to nearly 30 lakh beneficiaries, thereby doubling their number from the existing 15 lakh under the flagship scheme of Atta-Dal as a pro-poor initiative of the SAD-BJP alliance government in the state.

Badal said that he was extending this scheme to ensure two square meals a day to several left out poor families, adding: "The poor man's mouth was the guru's golak".

Addressing a sea of humanity at the Sacred Sri Valmiki Ashram (Ram Tirath) after laying the foundation stone of a Rs.115 crore historical monument-cum-temple with an inbuilt museum, said this scheme is a humble tribute to Valmiki.

Badal said civil work on the temple would begin within next two months and he expected it to be completed in two years.

He said the design lay out and site plan has already been approved and finalized by renowned architects of the Sri Guru Ram Das Department of Planning and Architecture, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.

The chief minister, his son Sukhbir Singh Badal, Information and Public Relations Minister Bikram Singh Majithia and state BJP president Kamal Sharma later paid obeisance at the Sri Valmiki Ashram Temple.

He called upon the people to follow the message of religious tolerance, harmony, peace and amity as preached by Valmiki, to carve out an egalitarian, well-developed and prosperous society.