Chandigarh, July 9 – Haryana Government has decided to grant pension to ex-sarpanches, Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of Zilla Parishads and the Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of Panchayat Samiti.

Giving information in this regard, Haryana Finance Minister, Capt. Abhimanyu said that on the instructions of Chief Minister Mr. Manohar Lal, the State Government has decided to give pension to former panchayat representatives. With this decision, 25,336 people will be given pension benefit of Rs 30.6 crore annually.

He said that as per the decision taken by the State Government, now the former Chairmen of the Zilla Parishads will get monthly pension of Rs. 2,000, former Vice-Chairmen will get Rs 1,000, Rs 1500 to former Chairmen of Panchayat Samitis, Rs 750 to former Vice-Chairmen and Rs 1,000 to former sarpanchs.

The Finance Minister said that at present, there are 75 former Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of the Zilla Parishads, 462 former Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of Panchayat Samitis and 24,262 former Sarpanchs, who will get the benefit of this decision.

He said that the rules have also been framed for this pension and those, who are eligible as per these rules, will get the benefit of this pension. He said that only Sarpanches or Chairmen elected after the year 1994, will get the benefit of this scheme. He said that people taking any kind of pension other than the Old Age pension will not be able to avail benefit of this scheme. He said that if a representative is elected more than once, he will get one-time pension only. He said that those people, who have not completed at least two-and-a-half years of their tenure, will not get this pension.

Chandigarh, July 9 – In order to reduce the impact of rising western culture on the young generation, the Haryana Chief Minister, Mr. Manohar Lal had decided to celebrate the birth anniversaries of the great personalities at the government level in order to apprise the youth with the biographies, teachings and philosophical ideas of such great men. In this series, the 550th Prakash Utsav of Shri Guru Nanak Dev ji will be organized at state level in Sirsa on August 4, 2019.

This decision was taken in the meeting of the Executive Committee constituted under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary, Mrs. Keshni Anand Arora, here today. The Chief Secretary welcomed all the special invitees from the Haryana Government for attending the meeting.

Giving information about the outline of the program, Director General, Information, Public Relations and Languages Department, Mr. Sameer Pal Srow said that the state level committee headed by Chief Minister, Mr. Manohar Lal was constituted on August 29, 2018, whose first meeting was held in Kurukshetra on November 30, 2018, in which 6 Sikh researchers highlighted the biography and teachings of Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj. After this, on December 20, 2018, the then Chief Secretary, Mr. D.S. Dhesi, interacted with the Vice Chancellors of various Universities through video conferencing and information about this event was given so that maximum research can be carried out on biographies of great personalities.

Mr. Srow also apprised that this 550th Prakash Utsav of Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj will be celebrated with the name of ‘Ruhani Rahgir’ and people from all corners of the state will be invited. Hoardings on the biography of Guru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj with name ‘Sirsa Chalo’ will be erected.

Former Chairman of the National Commission for Minority Affairs and former Rajya Sabha MP from Haryana, Sardar Trilochan Singh welcomed the decision of the Haryana Government, saying that this is a good initiative of the Chief Minister.

Others present in the meeting included MLA, Sardar Bakhshish Singh Virk, Chairman, Haryana Tourism Corporation, Mr. Jagdish Chopra, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Mr. Rajesh Khullar, Additional Chief Secretary, Arts and Cultural Affairs Department, Mrs. Dheera Khandelwal, Additional Chief Secretary, Public Works (Building and Roads) Department, Mr. Alok Nigam, Additional Chief Secretary, Power Department, Mr. T. C. Gupta, Deputy Commissioner, Sirsa, Mr. Ashok Kumar Garg besides the special invitees including Mr. R.C. Khanna from Faridabad, Mr. Guru Prasad Singh, Mr. Harpreet Singh Narula from Karnal, Mr. Lakhwinder Singh Grewal and other officers.