Dumka, Sept 22: Chief Minister Hemant Soren came down heavily on his predecessor Raghubar Das for withdrawing the Sona Sobran Dhoti Saari scheme while relaunching this much-hyped scheme here on Wednesday to fulfill the JMM’s promises made during the last assembly elections.
“The previous government of the BJP withheld the Sona Sobran Dhoti Saari scheme meant for a vast section of the underprivileged population of our state being deprived of even basic amenities. It was, therefore, my government had made it a point to relaunch it soon after coming into power,” the chief minister said while addressing the beneficiaries who turned up in large numbers from across the district at the Police line ground.
Soren said that the state government had made a budgetary provision of Rs 500 crore for this scheme under which poor people would get Dhoti or Lungi and Saari through the public distribution system by paying only Rs 10 twice a year.
He said that after successfully handling the crisis that emerged due to the pandemic the state government was gradually focussing on introducing developmental schemes along with income generating ones for the unemployed youths.
“We had declared this year to be the employment generation year but due to the pandemic we could kickstart such schemes a bit late,” Soren explained, adding that his government had recently come forward with a new industrial policy to felicitate aspiring youths of the SC/ST categories to set up industrial units on their own.
He said that the state government was importing eggs from other states to meet the demand of the midday meal particularly after his government’s decision to double the limit from 3 eggs per child to six eggs in a week.
“As such our government will purchase eggs directly from local entrepreneurs for the very purpose,” Soren said, adding youths should avail government schemes for setting up a hatchery and chicken farming for generating a good source of income.
In yet another bid to criticise the Raghubar Das government, Soren said that the JPSC failed to conduct even a single examination in a free and fair manner during its five years tenure.
“The BJP government introduced the recruitment policy as to benefit only outsiders by ignoring the interests of local candidates as a result all of its employment initiatives still remain unanswered,” Soren pointed out patting the back of his government for successfully organising JPSC exams only recently.
“We have rolled back all such regulations of the previous government to felicitate only Jharkhandis avail the employment opportunities of the state,” he added.
While stressing on the English learning for students the chief minister said his government would set up government English medium schools in all the districts in the next year.
The Chief Minister also interacted with the beneficiaries of the Sona Sobran Dhoti Saari scheme present at the venue. He also laid the foundation and inaugurated developmental schemes worth over Rs 36 crores altogether in Dumka and dedicated the corona testing machine of international standard for the Phulo Jhano medical college and hospital here.
