PUNJAB

The Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (Pspcl) has issued a termination notice to the company, an official statement said.

The development assumes significance as several Punjab Congress leaders, including Navjot Singh Sidhu, have been pressing for scrapping faulty PPAs signed during the previous SAD-BJP regime to provide electricity to people at cheaper rates.

A default notice has been served by the PSPCL to GVK on Saturday for cancellation of the PPA due to high power cost and falling lowest in the merit order, procurement of energy from GVK that had been restricted only within the range of 25 per cent to 30 per cent during most of the times of a year resulting in higher tariff of about Rs 7.52 per unit for the last year, the statement said.

Channi said this step has been taken to safeguard the interests of consumers by way of reducing the burden of costly power.

Punjab finance ministerHarpal Singh Cheemasaid on Wednesday that the state was collaborating with theunder a $215 million (Rs 1,714.89 crore)BFAIR(building fiscal and institutional resilience) project in which the states contribution will be $65 million (Rs 518.72 crore).

He claimed that unlike the other loans, this Money will be for systemic reforms in five departments, of finance, planning, Governance reforms, Local Government, and womens and child development.

The Chief Minister, during a launching event, claimed that out of 547 poll promises made in the manifesto, 422 have already been fully implemented, 52 partially while 59 are yet to be implemented.

Notably, people from across the state virtually joined the event at nearly 4,000 different locations while several Ministers, MLAs, and other peoples representatives participated at 400 functions organized in different parts of the State for disbursal of cheques of enhanced social security pension.

The states Social Security, Women and Child Development Minister Aruna Chaudhary lauded the Chief Minister to double the social security pension from Rs 750 to Rs 1500 per month from July 1, 2021, to 27 lakh old age, widow, destitute and handicapped beneficiaries.

The farmers have rejected the meager compensation awarded by the District Revenue Officers (DROs), who have been designated as CALAs (Competent Authority for Land Acquisitions).

The issue relates to 25,000 hectares of land in 15 districts across the State. The land is under process of acquisition for the project covering multiple expressways, viz Delhi-Jammu-Katra, Jamnagar-Amritsar, Ludhiana-Ropar, Bathinda-Dabwali, besides bypass for Jalandhar and Ludhiana.

According to sources in the Health Department, all civil surgeons have been asked to prepare lists of centres that can be converted into AACs. In the third phase, the government plans to convert four dispensaries in each large district and two in every small district into AACs.

Moreover, some rural dispensaries will get grant for the first time in the past 17 years. It was in 2006 when most of the rural dispensaries under the Rural Development and Panchayats Department got grants for the upkeep of buildings. Some of the rural dispensaries are in very bad condition.

With an aim to provide better health facilities to the rural Population, the government transferred 1,186 rural dispensaries from the Health Department to the Rural Development and Panchayats (RDP) Department in 2006. But now a majority of these have been given back to the Health Department and around 550 are with the RDP Department.

Describing Education as the bedrock for building a new Society, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Saturday announced introduction of multipronged improvements in the sector. He said government schools in the state will be transformed into ‘schools of eminence’.

To ensure that students get quality and affordable education, the government is committed not only to building state-of-the-art government schools but also regulating fees in private schools, he said.

The NoC (No Objection Certificate) of schools found violating the Fee Act, 2016, will be cancelled and a fine of Rs 1 lakh will be imposed,” he said.

Mann said the has already started the process to fill vacant posts and the recruitment of 5,994 Elementary Trained Teachers and 8,393 Pre-Primary teachers is under process.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday said land records in the state will be made online and other routine administrative work hassle-free.

The CM, who was chairing a high-level meeting of Punjab Land Record Society, said all land related records must be put online so that people can get access to them with a single click.

The Chief Minister, chairing the third meeting of the Board of Governors of Punjab Bureau of Promotion (PBIP) through video conferencing, said that the recently-passed legislation on anti-red tapeism as a part of Governments reforms agenda for improving delivery of Services to public and Ease of Doing Business to Industry has already been put in place so as to re-engineer the Government procedures and make it more investor friendly.

The Chief Minister categorically said that the Governments aim should be to facilitate every prospective entrepreneur or industrialist to be a part of Punjab’s overall industrial development and prosperity.

Punjab New and Sources Department on Wednesday launched Punjab State Energy Action Plan to ensure promotion of Energy Efficiency in buildings, industries, municipalities, Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture, transport and other sectors. The Energy Action Plan is aimed at assisting Punjab government departments or agencies to adopt most sustainable, long-term, and inter-sectoral renewable or clean energy plan.

The states Additional Chief Secretary (New and Renewable Energy Sources) A Venu Prasad, PEDA chairman HS Hanspal, and Head of Indo-German Energy Programme GIZ Dr Winfried Damm also launched Decision Support Tool (DST) along with the Amritsar Smart City Portal and Renewable Purchase Obligations (RPO) portal for the state of Punjab.

PEDA has also signed a MoU with GIZs IGEN Access to Energy programme funded by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development for seeking technical assistance with the help of a well-experienced team of consultants and representatives of over 20 departments or organizations.

Emphasizing on the need for fast-tracking implementation of the action plan and reviewing the progress quarterly, he asked all the departments to come forward to equip their office buildings with solar panels to decarbonize the power sector, which will help in reducing their power consumption charges to 25 to 30 per cent.

To incentivise villagers to give up vaccine hesitancy,Punjabchief ministerAmarinder Singhon Tuesday announced a special development grant of Rs 10 lakh for every village that achieves 100%vaccinationtarget under the state governments Corona Mukt Pind Abhiyan.

Interacting virtually with village panchayats represented by more than 2,000 heads/members across over 4,000 live locations in the state through LED screens, the chief minister informed them that his government had already sanctioned permission for sarpanches to utilize up to Rs 5,000 per day from panchayat funds for emergency Covid-19 treatment, up to a maximum of Rs 50,000.