The second day of Bharat Nirman Public Information Campaign at Shahzadpur, Ambala was mainly devoted to education, employment and related rights. Speaking on the Right to Education, Block Primary Education Officer Sh. Satpal Kaushik said that in this Act the Centre had provided for free education to all up to the age of 14. Giving details of the provisions of this law, he said that special attention had been given to the education of girls. He informed that literacy rate for males in Haryana is 84 percent whereas for females, it is 56 percent, thereby need for focusing on the education of girls.
In his address on MNREGA, Shri Balwinder Attri, Deputy Director (M&C), PIB Jalandhar informed that on an average 480 lakh families are given employment annually. The Centre Government has spent Rs. 2,38,400 crore till the end of March 2013 since the schemes was launched in 2006, he added. He further said that under a new provision under MNREGA, small warehouses can be set up at the block and Panchayat level. People belonging to states like Haryana and Punjab can avail this facility as these are surplus states in the agriculture produce. The states have just to provide land for these warehouses, which can have capacity of upto 18000 tons. On Land Acquisition Act, he said that under the new law, land could be acquired only with the consent of land-owners. The compensations for land in rural areas will be four times the market rate, whereas it would be double the market rate for urban areas.
Speaking on Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Assistant Project Coordinator Sh. Pramjit Singh said that it had brought a fundamental improvement in the education infrastructure and level of instruction/education in the schools. 1442 additional rooms have been built in 798 schools of Ambala district under SSA. Water tanks have been provided in 477 schools and toilets for students built in 473 schools, he said. 430 separate toilets for girls students have been built and arrangements made for 1929 students needing special care.
Senior Marketing Officer from AGMARK, Smt. Shakuntla Juneja exhorted the farmers to avail of the government scheme for building rural warehouses. The government provides subsidy of upto 25 percent on the cost of such warehouses. Ayurvedic Medical Officer, Dr. Naresh Kumar highlighted the effectiveness of this system in curing chronic diseases through cheap and easily available medicinal herbs.
Directorate of Field Publicity also organized a quiz contest on the major policies and programmes of the Government of India. Artists of Song and Drama Division enthralled the audience with information-packed entertainment presentations. A large number of school students and local people visited the exhibition stalls, gathered information and collected the printed material on different programmes & schemes.
Source: Press Information Bureau
