Chief Minister presented cheques worth Rs 10,000 each as pension amount to nine media persons above the age of 60 years.

Panchkula, October 26 — Pursuing the path of reforms, the Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Manohar Lal, today said that with the beginning of the fourth year of his government, he would interact with the people of the state every month on a new forum under the banner of ‘Yet Another Reform.’ “We are formulating a new scheme under which a new reform would be rolled out every month, and the people would be apprised of its benefits,” he added.
The Chief Minister made this announcement while interacting with media persons at a function held in Panchkula to mark the completion of three years of his government in office, where he launched the Pension Scheme for media persons.
On this occasion, the Chief Minister presented cheques worth Rs 10,000 each as pension amount to nine media persons above the age of 60 years. He also honoured them with mementos and a shawl. Those honoured included Mr N.S Parwana, Mr Vidya Prakash Prabhakar, Mr N.S Malik, Mr Gobind Thukral, Mr K.B Pandit, Mr Surinder Khullar, Mr Ramesh Gautam, Mr Vinod Kumar Gupta, and Mr Anil Puri.
While congratulating the media persons, the Chief Minister said his government had completed three years in the office, and to mark this occasion, it had been decided to organize a programme to honour media persons.
Mr Manohar Lal had announced a slew of incentives for media persons at the “Swarna Jayanti Journalists’ Meet” in Panchkula recently. Keeping his word, he launched the pension scheme whereas; the cashless medical scheme and the life insurance scheme would be started from Haryana Day on November 1.
Similarly, as announced, work on the accreditation of media persons at the sub-division level has been completed, and media centres have been set up at five district headquarters while work on such centres in other districts is in progress.
He said when he took over the reins of the administration of the state three year ago, there was rampant corruption in the state and the law-and- order situation was deteriorating. Today, the Opposition parties in the state have no issues to rake up, and they are just raising petty issues to serve their vested interests.
As a result of the efforts made by the present government, the Supreme Court had given its verdict in favour of Haryana on the Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal issue. The previous governments had eliminated the true spirit of the Dadupur Nalvi Canal with which it was conceived. Keeping in view of the opposition by the farmers and non-feasibility of the canal, the state government has scrapped the scheme.
The present government has also restarted the purchase of bajra which had been discontinued by the previous government for three consecutive years.
While referring to the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY) launched by the Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister said even though the farmers were in favour of the scheme and the Swaminathan Commission Report also suggested that there should be insurance cover for the farmers’ crops, the opposition parties opposed it for the sake of opposition.
The state government has taken several steps to ensure socio-economic development of the people. A new atmosphere of education has been created in the state by imparting quality education to the students so that they could get maximum employment opportunities.
He said that as many as 4,150 announcements had been made on various development works in the state during the last three years, out of which 2,500 announcements had either been completed or were in progress.
Earlier, the Chief Minister released a book titled “Sal Teen Behtreen” based on the achievements of his government in the last three years. A documentary highlighting the achievement of the State Government was also presented on this occasion.
Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, Mr Rajesh Khullar, who is also Principal Secretary, Information, Public Relations and Languages Department, presented the welcome address.
Among those present included the Education Minister, Mr Ram Bilas Sharma, Information, Public Relations and Languages Department Minister, Mrs Kavita Jain, Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister, Mr O.P Dhankar, Minister of State for Cooperation, Mr Manish Kumar Grover, Transport Minister, Mr Krishan Lal Panwar, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Nayab Singh Saini, Minister of State for Public Health Engineering, Dr Banwari Lal, MLAs namely Mr Gian Chand Gupta and Mrs Latika Sharma, Director, Information, Public Relations and Languages Department Mr T.L Satyaprakash, State BJP Media Incharge Mr Rajiv Jain, Principal OSD to Chief Minister Mr Neeraj Daftuar, Media Advisor to the Chief Minister Mr Amit Arya, and a large number of media persons.