Chandigarh, July 5: Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday said the Punjab Government would bear the liability of the outstanding loans of over 7,000 state farm suicide cases. Addressing the first formal press conference after assuming office on March 13, he said the government waived loans of all small and marginal farmers (owning up to 5 acres) having loans up to Rs 2 lakh.
“As on March 31, there were about 20.22 lakh bank loan accounts with an outstanding amount of Rs 59,621 crore. There are about 18.5 lakh farm families and about 65 per cent of them are of small and marginal farmers, out of which about 70 per cent has access to institutional finance.”
The CM said the government had decided to institute a regulatory body on private education – both in colleges and universities. Amarinder clarified that the body would be constituted in response to complaints regarding unregulated number of admissions, high fees, low salary to staff and non-uniformity in the quality of education, particularly in certain private universities.
“Private colleges not adhering to norms of fee and less salary to staff will be definitely covered.” Amarinder said sand prices would stabilise after monsoon, when mining under new contracts begun. “Sand prices have risen in the wake of government checking illegal mining, leading to shortage of material. We have already generated revenue of more than Rs 500 crore compared with the meagre amount collected during the SAD-BJP government,” the CM claimed.
On the progress made to rein in the drug mafia, the CM claimed that the Special Task Force (STF) had registered 3,845 cases under the NDPS Act till June 13 since the government took charge. “In all, 4,438 persons have been arrested and more than 58 kg of heroin seized,” he added.
News Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com
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