‘We will raise the bar’: Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann on completing 1 year in office

With the government completing its first year on Thursday, Mann asked the people of the state to keep faith in him the way they had trusted him while casting their votes. “We had given guarantees and not promises. We have ensured that those guarantees are rolled out in the first year of our rule. We have given 26,797 jobs, regularised services of 14,000 contractual teachers and employees of education department out of 36,000 total employees. The rest would also be regularised,” he said.

Stating that AAP was a party that emerged out of a revolution with no political background or legacy, Mann said that the government has tried to fulfil all its guarantees in the first year. This was comparable to governments of other political parties that intended to fulfil promises in the last year of their rule, he added.

“When we had promised 300 units of power free of cost, Opposition parties made fun of us. But we did it. We rolled out the scheme from July 1 onwards, and today, 87 per cent of residents are getting zero bills,” he said.

Mann said the government had introduced MSP on moong, bonus for those taking up DSR (Direct Sowing of Rice) technique of sowing paddy, and that it was for the first time that Sugarfed did not have a single paisa outstanding towards farmers. “We gave them a bailout package of Rs 392 crore,” he said.

The chief minister said that the government had set up mohalla clinics and 12 lakh to 15 lakh people have already benefitted from them. “These people did not need to queue up in government hospitals. It is an achievement,” he said.

About the ‘Schools of Eminence’ project, he said that they would be considering the aptitude and interests of children before offering them subjects for further studies so that they will do well.

Stating that the government had delivered on the sacrilege issue, he said, “We had promised that we will ensure justice. We have produced a challan of 7,000 pages prepared by the SIT…We did not cut a single line out of the investigations by SIT.”

The CM said that their mission was not to form the government once again but to help the next generation.

“After one year, we will work at a faster speed than the first year. Industry is coming to us, many industrialists are ready to invest money. We will start a campaign against drugs. We are working with transparency. We have nailed corruption as former ministers; bigwigs are in jails. We have taken action against our own ministers also. Ours is the first government after Independence that has nailed its own ministers,” he said.