Against 1,50,000 crores spent by Congress in 10 years on development of urban areas, BJP has spent 4,70,000 crores in five years
Delhi Metro 11th in world in affordability
India to be free of open defecation by December
By SK.Vyas
Rohtak,October 16,2019 ; . Sardar Hardip Singh Puri, Union Minister for Housing and Urban Development and Civil Aviation Industry with additional charge as Cabinet Minister State in Ministry of Commerce and Industry addressed a press conference at Rohtak in Haryana. Puri has been with Indian Foreign Services for 40 years. He has been posted at different countries during his tenure.
Appreciating the hard and sincere work of Manohar Lal in the development of Haryana Puri said that he is one of the rare persons with this level of commitment. He said that one of the factors that have been ignored by the previous governments is the increase in the urban population. While in 1947 the urban population was only 17%, it has risen to 30% as per the census of 2011. This is also eight years old figure and now the percentage must have further rose. Quite surprisingly the earlier governments spent only 150000 crores in the ten year period starting 2004 for development of urban India, BJP has already spent 4,70,000 crores for development of urban areas. The difference in the intentions of both parties can be very well assessed by these figures. He said that comparing other neighboring states, Haryana has been the fastest on the track of development. The minister said that in fact, the actual groundwork didn’t take off in 2014 itself. After forming the government, actual implementation on the projects that were actually the door to progress was started as early as June 2015. Special projects that took off during this period were Smart City projects, Swacch Bharat and many more.
Puri said that since he belongs to Punjab and is residing at Delhi, he can compare easily the pace of development in these three states. He said that the way policies are adopted and are executed in Haryana is the best of all the neighboring states.
Talking about the Swacch Bharat mission, the minister said that apart from initiatives taken by the government, the movement has been adopted by the common man of the country, which is more important. He said that there are self-help groups, NGOs and individuals taking their own initiatives in the matter of Swacch Bharat. He informed that in order to make the country free of garbage 47% of the garbage is recycled while out of the balance segregation of wet and dry garbage is done to follow the guidelines for disposal of waste.
Talking about the pledge to make the country free of open defecation, Hardip Puri said that states have performed well in this direction and almost all of the rural areas of the country are now free of open defecation. He said that whatever area remains would also be made free of the menace. He said that the number of toilets made in rural areas of the country is tremendous and quite surprisingly, never thought by any of the previous governments.
On the front of providing facilities to the people he informed that 2,00,000 new water connections are released in these five years and 1,60,000 new LED street lights added in these five years. Under the smart city initiative two of the cities of Haryana, i.e., Faridabad and Karnal, figure in the list of smart cities. He informed that in order to curb corrupt practices the majority of services are made online to keep track on the progress.
Puri also spoke about the National Security in detail. Talking about Kashmir Puri said that while the opposition accuses the BJP of keeping leaders as a hostage for the last two months, they forget that it was Congress that kept Sheikh Abdullah arrested for 11 years. He said that abrogation of Article 370 prevented people of the country to buy any land in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Also, the schemes to support the backward classes didn’t favor the residents of the state. He especially made mention of the Pokhran during the regime of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Bajpai in the context of hard steps taken by BJP.
Talking on the corruption of Congress Government, he said that it is a well-known fact that congress used to acquire land from farmers and sell the same to big companies at a meager cost. Even the Apex court has said that there seems to be some connection between the congress government and the companies.
He said that the economy is already rose to the tune of 3 trillion which will be increased to 5 trillion by the next elections. He shared the spread of a metro train in the country. He informed that the metro train network is already spread over 670 km including Haryana and another 600 km is more to come. In Haryana, the network of metro is 41 km, which is still adding with every year. He also added that Delhi Metro is considered to be 11th in the world in terms of affordability.
Puri said that Manohar Government has performed fantastically on the front of women’s safety also. Sharing the facts, he said that while there were only two all-women police stations prior to BJ P coming to power in Haryana, which is now rose to 33. Also, the number of women colleges was 31 in the year 2014 which is now 62. The Manohar Government has decided that there must be a girl’s college at every 20 kilometers so that the girls need not travel far from their place. He further informed that there were no buses for girls for commuting but in Manohar Sarkar, there are 181 buses plying for Girls only.
Talking on the matter of his ministry, i.e., housing, Puri said that on assuming charge, one of the priorities of PM Narendra Modi was to provide housing to all by 2022. At that time the estimate was to build up one crores houses to attain the target. In the five years’ time, 90 lacs of these are already sanction, 56 lacs already grounded and 26 lacs already occupied. In Haryana itself, 2,70,000 houses are sanctioned. Regarding the completion of construction he said that with the use of technology, we are able to complete a project in 18 months period.