With Congress-led Punjab Government completing its half term, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Monday directed his Ministers to draw up comprehensive action plans for their respective departments and engage more closely with the legislators to give further impetus to the development works in their regions.

The directions come as the Chief Minister and his Ministers discussed the progress made by the Government over the past 30 months, and the way forward.

Capt Amarinder expressed satisfaction over the work done so far by all the departments, “despite severe financial crunch faced by the Government for which he blamed the “gross mismanagement of the state by the SAD-BJP coalition in the 10 years of their rule”.

Terming the half-way mark of his government as “an occasion to stop and review the work of the past and to draw out a detailed strategy for the second half”, the Chief Minister underlined the need to go forward with focused action plans.

He asked the Ministers to work closely with the MLAs in their respective areas to get their inputs and feedback on a regular basis.

He also directed them to pay special attention to the development works identified or initiated by the MLAs in their constituencies.

“It is important to look at the future strategy from both, political and administrative viewpoints.

Politically, we need to identify how to engage better with the people, take our achievements to them, and prioritise their issues that need urgent attention,” he stressed.

Underpinning the administrative aspect of the government’s role, the Chief Minister urged the Ministers to review their work of the past 30 months from the perspective of the progress made with respect to implementation of the poll promises and manifesto announcements. The Chief Minister asked the Ministers to take particular note of the performance on flagship Government of India programmes and the new legislations or policies of the Government.

Restructuring of the departments and recruitment of critical manpower for smooth and timely execution of policies and projects was identified by the Chief Minister as a crucial focus area for all the Ministers.

Capt Amarinder called for concerted measures to bring Punjab back on the track as India’s leading state, in terms of overall development and across the key indices of health, education, industrialization, agriculture and law and order.

While considerable progress had been made on every count, his Government was committed to ensure the highest levels of all-round development for the state and every section of its people, said the Chief Minister.

AMARINDER'S “BIZARRE” CLAIMS ARE DIVORCED FROM REALITY, SAYS  SAD

Hitting out and ridiculing Congress-led Punjab Government for spending crores of rupees of the state exchequer on its “media blitz spreading misinformation” through its “Public Disinformation Department” on its achievement, SAD leaders and former ministers Bikram Singh Majithia and Daljit Singh Cheema on Monday said that most of the schemes highlighted are of the Union Government. “In fact, Capt Amarinder should thank the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for these schemes for the benefit of Punjabis rather than taking credit of these,” they said.

Contesting Capt Amarinder’s claims of fulfilloing 141 of the 161 promises, Cheema said that he was not only befooling the people but also exposing party leadership to ridicule, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh whose picture adored the party manifesto.

Majithia said while Amarinder submitted a list of 141 promises fulfilled to Sonia Gandhi, his Government mentioned only 21 achievements which spoke whom he is trying to misguide.

They said that ever-increasing farmer suicides in the State are a testimony that the farming community is in absolute distress and no relief promised by the Congress manifesto has pulled the peasantry of the state out of economic duress.

“The tall claims by Amarinder Singh by taking an oath on Gutka Sahib and promising that on coming to power the drugs would be eradicated within four weeks, is total farce. Since the Congress leaders in the state themselves are facilitating the trade in drugs to the extent of providing home delivery, how could one think of drug free state,” they asked.

Beside, Majithia pointed that most of the claims simply do not exist. “The claim of providing mid day meals to 14 lakh children reveals half truth as recent media reports indicate that for months no such facility was provided in the state. The claim of providing 1.4 cycles to girl students simply ignore that more girls have been left out and denied cycle,” he said.

“Shockingly, the government claims to have done a lot for the schedule castes and backward classes but failed to acknowledge that it failed to release the scholarships for which it had duly received funds from the Centre,”  added Majithia.