Expressing concern over the fatalities due to road accidents in the state, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday said a Road Safety Force will be formed in the Punjab Police to avert accident.
Addressing a gathering after inaugurating a Regional Driving Training centre here, the chief minister said that on a daily basis around 14 people die in road accidents in Punjab.
Mann said the force will be entrusted with the task of checking rash driving, and streamlining vehicular movement on roads and others to prevent road accidents.
This move will reduce the burden on cops deployed in police stations, Mann said in an official statement.
He further informed that the Regional Driving Training Centre is equipped with hi-tech technology and it will give major relief to people who want to get heavy vehicle licences, thereby saving their time, money and energy.
Mann said the state government is making all-out efforts to remove the blind spots on the roads to avert any casualties.
The chief minister said for him morality is paramount in politics and taking even a single penny from the public to him is anathematic.
He further said that honesty, transparency and responsive administration is the hallmark of his government.
Hitting at the opposition parties, the chief minister said that people have started disregarding him and “hugging each other”.
Mann was apparently referring to a rare display of bonhomie after years of bitter rivalry between Punjab Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia, both of whom had warmly hugged each other at an event recently.
Lashing out at previous governments which ruled the state, Mann, without naming anyone, alleged that some politicians established their monopoly over the health, education, transport and other sectors by ruining the government institutions.
The chief minister ensured the state government will give uninterrupted and regular power supply to the farmers for paddy cultivation.
Elaborate arrangements have already been made in this regard and there is no shortage of power in the state, the chief minister said.
Mann said that the state already has a coal stock of 52 days so power will be supplied uninterruptedly to the tillers.
He said that the Punjab government will put a tender for purchasing the Goindwal Thermal Power plant in Tarn Taran district and for the first time it will bid to buy a private plant.
-With PTI Input
