Holistic growth of villages need of the hour: Badal

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today announced to felicitate three top performing sarpanches (village heads) at a state-level function on Independence Day.
Interacting with representatives of the three best performing panchayats of every district at a meeting here, he said holistic growth of villages was the need of the hour.
Badal said the Rural Development and Panchayat departments would evolve a mechanism to identify the top performing village panchayats every year to honour them on Independence Day, adding that the award would be given in due recognition of the panchayats to ensure public welfare and development of villages.
Exhorting panchayats and officers for a concerted effort to ensure the state's development, he said this "gigantic" task would not be possible without active support and cooperation of the public.

The Chief Minister urged the people to monitor the ongoing development works regularly, adding that this would result in quality execution of the projects.
Badal asked officers to undertake frequent field visits in order to acquaint themselves with the ground realities.

He said as the majority of the population lives in villages, the government was committed to ensure unprecedented development of the same and provide facilities at par with cities.
Badal said the sole aim of conducting such parleys was to prepare a roadmap to give further impetus to the ongoing development of the state.
He asked the POWERCOM authorities to release tube well connections for panchayat lands within a month.

The Chief Minister said in order to make Punjab open defecation-free, the work of constructing toilets in every household should be expedited.
Badal also said in order to give a voice to the farming community in decision making, his government has approved the constitution of Punjab Kisan Vikas Chamber.