Sukhu Government Committed to Welfare of the Poor and Underprivileged: Kewal Singh Pathania

Shahpur, August 9: Deputy Chief Whip Kewal Singh Pathania said that Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu is committed to the welfare of the poor and underprivileged people of Himachal Pradesh, with public interest and the well-being of weaker sections at the core of every major government decision.

Addressing a public hearing on the identification and inclusion of eligible families in the Below Poverty Line (BPL) list at Rehlu in the Shahpur Assembly constituency on Sunday, Pathania said the state government’s initiative to review and improve BPL lists was a welcome and commendable step.

He said the initiative seeks to address shortcomings in the decades-old system and ensure that genuine poor and needy families receive their rightful benefits. The government is committed to taking poverty alleviation programmes from official records to the ground and ensuring that benefits reach people at the last mile.

Pathania said the Sukhu government was pursuing its agenda of administrative reform with a focus on public service and accountability. He highlighted initiatives such as the disaster relief manual, Intkal Adalats and the Mukhya Mantri Sukh-Aashray Yojana for orphaned and destitute children as examples of measures aimed at providing greater support to vulnerable sections.

He said the government has also launched the Apna Parivar Sukhi Parivar initiative to identify extremely poor families who had remained outside the BPL list for decades. According to him, a transparent survey has identified around 85,000 to 90,000 extremely poor families across the state who had previously not been included in the BPL list and had consequently been deprived of various government schemes.

Pathania said the income eligibility criteria for BPL identification had also been relaxed to provide greater protection to economically weaker families.

He said the government has taken steps to strengthen transparency in BPL selection by constituting two-member committees at the sub-divisional and Block Development Officer levels to re-verify recommendations made by Gram Sabhas. He said this mechanism would help prevent irregularities and ensure that only genuinely eligible families are included.

He added that public interaction programmes were being organised at the block level across the state, where elected representatives and senior officials were directly meeting identified poor families and hearing their concerns on the spot. This, he said, was helping bring the administration closer to the people and ensuring more effective implementation of welfare schemes.

Samagra Sikhsha