Authorize states to take decisions to resume economic activities, says Khattar

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday urged the Central government to authorize states to decide on their own to resume industrial and economic activities in green, orange, and red zones barring the containment ones.

Khattar made the request during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's video conference with chief ministers of various states.

During the conference, the chief minister apprised the Centre that about 14 lakh of 24 lakh workers engaged with about 35,000 factories in Haryana have returned to work.

Khattar sought to assure the prime minister that his government would make all efforts to bring Haryana's GDP in the second quarter of fiscal 2020-21 to the level of that in the corresponding quarter of 2019-20, a statement after the PM's video meet with CMs.

Khattar thanked the prime minister for acceding to his request made during the previous video conference on April 27 to end the uncertainty prevailing around the conduct of competitive examinations like the Combined Defense Services, JEE and NEET.

Expressing concern over the future of the youth, Khattar once again also urged the Central government to consider opening schools, colleges and educational institutions running professional courses with 50 percent limit to maintain social distancing norms.

He informed the prime minister that the documentation of the efforts made by the state government in the fight against COVID-19 is being done under the guidance of Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA).

The chief minister said Haryana has brought about many reforms and launched new schemes during the lockdown period.

He said Haryana has launched 'Mera Pani Meri Virasat' scheme to take forward its earlier 'Jal Hi Jeevan Hai' mission to encourage farmers to diversify their crops to alternative crops which grow with less water instead of paddy in paddy growing areas.

He said to provide financial assistance ranging from Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 to 5.03 lakh families under 'Mukhya Mantri Parivar Samridhi Yojana', an amount of Rs 154 crore has been transferred to the accounts of beneficiaries.

He also told the meet that the work on Census-2021 which has stopped due to the lockdown during these days we have conducted the survey work of needs and resources of 25 lakh families through the constitution of 20,000 local committees and have stored this data digitally.

Khattar informed that the state government has issued distress ration tokens to about 3.73 lakh families who did not have any kind of ration card in order to enable them to get free ration.

Similarly, about 13.4 lakh families were given financial assistance of Rs 553 crore by direct transfer into their accounts.

The chief minister said the state government has taken forward the process of procurement of Rabi crops by maintaining the social distancing norms and till now about 66 lakh metric tonnes of wheat and mustard have been procured and about 15 lakh metric tonnes is expected to be procured further.

He said to overcome the mental stress in the people amid the lockdown, AYUSH Department has prepared products to increase immunity and these are being distributed free to everyone.