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Agenda of Punjab

1]   Federal Structure

1. Restoration of the Federal structure in the country in the letter and spirit of the constitution is imperative. The usurpation of the constitutional powers of the states, since 1950, should be ended. The diversity in the country should be celebrated and should be given full legal protection by all the instruments of the state.  Strengthening of the federal structure is equivalent to strengthening of the states. Progressively more power to states should be devolved to further consolidate federalism on the pattern of USA.  Punjab should lead the way, as did the Kisan Andolan, to bring all like minded regional parties together to achieve this goal. 
2. As the state is seeking more powers from the centre, the state should also further transfer power to the Panchayati Raj institutions & local bodies. Powers that include 29 departments should be transferred to the panchayats as per the 73^rd amendment of the constitution & powers of the 18 departments should be transferred to local bodies as per the 74th amendment of the constitution. The Gram Sabha should be fully activated as per the provisions of the law. Ward committees should be empowered on the pattern of the Gram Sabhas and should be fully activated likewise.

2]   Agriculture

1. Setting up of a Commission to decide & implement the Minimum Income Guarantee scheme for the farmers in the state. The Commission should include representatives of farmers, independent experts from agriculture and economic sectors. The minimum income should not be less than Rs 25,000 per month which is almost equal to the basic pay of the state government employees falling in the category “D”.
2. Villages should be made self-sustaining by starting small scale industries at the village level. Ventures such as jam, pickle making, embroidery, milk & dairy products, food products, vegetable packaging and marketing, machinery workshops, electrical gadgets repairing etc should be promoted within the village. Major part of the receipts from the surplus produce marketed by farmers should be ploughed back in the village to make it self dependent. Mechanism in this regard should be developed at the Gram Sabha level. For instance, the need for vegetables can be met at the village level. The remaining surplus should be sent to their nearest town / city and thereon state & inter state. 
3. Trade should be opened through various land routes such as Attari-Wagah to facilitate crop exports leading to further revenue generation by creating & marketing Punjab as a brand.  Likewise cargo facilities should be created at the main airports of Punjab for export of vegetables & other products. 
4. As multinational seed companies have started exploitation of farmers and others concerned, indigenous seed production of various agricultural & horticultural crops should be promoted and a special R & D facility should be created at the PAU for this purpose. 
5. Multipurpose cooperative societies should be set up to provide machinery such as tractors, cultivators and other implements to farmers. Such societies should also arrange quality seeds, fertilisers etc for farmers. These can play a vital role in reducing input cost on farming. Lambra-Kangri cooperative society model can be applied in the entire state. The future of Punjab lies in cooperative farming & people should be encouraged to move forward in its direction. 
6. The depleting sub soil water level is a major concern of Punjab. Devastating soil health, stubble burning & crop diversification are other burning problems of the state. The state govt should focus on these issues and should act fast to find viable solutions. 

3]   MGNREGA 

1. The MGNREGA should be implemented in the true letter and spirit of the law. The Government must set up a separate wing in the Rural Development and Panchayats Department to educate the people especially the small and marginal farmers and the poor sections of the society about the scheme. A committee of the Vidhan Sabha should examine the implementation of MGNREGA and submit a report twice in the House recommending steps required to be taken to remove fault lines. The committee must fix the responsibility of the officers faulting in its implementation.

4]   Lokpal

1. Lokpal should have powers to take suo-motu cognisance of the cases of corruption. It should have powers to search & seize. The Lok Pal should have the authority to check and act against misuse of all governmental resources and facilities by the Chief Minister, Cabinet Ministers, MLAs, state bureaucrats and others holding public offices. The Lok Pal should have the power to check & verify the details submitted by candidates at the time of filing their nomination papers. Any property or other assets, found, not mentioned in the Affidavit, should be treated as state property.  Anybody found guilty by them should be prosecuted & punished as per the law. Any appeal against the Lok Pal’s judgment is to be made to the Supreme Court.  
2. The appointment of the Lokpal should be made by a 3 member committee consisting of the CM, Opposition Leader & Chief Justice of the Punjab & Haryana High Court. The Lok Pal will be answerable to the Vidhan Sabha & any action against him shall require a resolution passed by a minimum of 2/3rd members of the total house strength.   
3. Conflict of Interest Law should be there for politicians and also for the bureaucrats having a stake in business, trade, transport, liquor etc. The Chief Minister, the Ministers, MLAs and others holding public offices should be legally bound to declare their business and other fiscal interests immediately after the formation of the popular government. The Lok Pal should be empowered to examine all the decisions taken by the govt involving a conflict of interest. 
4. The Lok Pal shall order a probe to collect information about all properties & assets declared or undeclared, nami or benami of the chief ministers, ministers, MLAs,  bureaucrats, police officers & others who have held public offices since the year 2002. Their family members should also be probed. If any of the properties and assets of any of these people are found to be beyond all known means of their income or have grown / increased unnaturally & beyond all known means of their income, then their properties and assets should be forfeited and there should be legal action against them as per the Lok Pal Act. 

5]   Police

1. Police should be brought under civil administration control, a hallmark of any democracy, as it used to be before the 1980s. Police complaint authority should be set up in all districts. Duty hours for police personnel should be fixed like other government departments. Like the army, a provision should be made for all policemen to spend a month or so with their families.
2. The British era tools of police training should be abandoned. Reforms in the police are required urgently. Police should be made people friendly and their training system should be restructured too.
   Action must follow against the policeman concerned if a FIR is quashed & declared false by the High Court. 
3. CCTV cameras should be put up in all towns and cities for security purposes to check the increasing crime graph.

6]   Drugs 

1. The state govt should give top priority to the problem of drugs. Results should be visible within 6 months. Counter intelligence police should be used to break the police nexus with drug smugglers & other organised criminal syndicates. They should report directly to the CM. A report of counter intelligence on drugs and organised criminal syndicates should be directly kept in the Vidhan Sabha. The police complaint committee should take cognizance of the reports of drug smuggling in the area & after investigation should recommend action against the SHO to the concerned authorities. The MLA will also be morally responsible for the same. 

7]   Prisons

1. Gangsterism being perpetrated from within the jails by convicts should be treated as organised crime. DC should inspect jails thrice a month and report to the commission which should be set up to examine and act on such reports. Jailors should be held responsible for this & should be prosecuted on the DC’s recommendation. 
2. More open jails similar to Nabha Jail should be set up to improve living conditions for the convicts exhibiting good conduct.

8]   Administrative Reforms

1. Corruption has become a big issue. Administrative and Governance reforms should be initiated at a big scale to make the official delivery system free of corruption from top to bottom. The Right to Service Act should be further strengthened to make the delivery of public services in the prescribed period. Special Vidhan Sabha committee should be set up to scrutinize the performance of the vigilance bureau, vigilance commission and vigilance wings set up in various departments. All these bodies should be directly answerable to the Vidhan Sabha. Honest & efficient officers should be duly rewarded.  The officers facing corruption & other charges and having a poor reputation shouldn’t be appointed on any public dealing post.
2. Entire might of the State should focus on demolishing the parallel black economy patronized and promoted by politicians in connivance with civil administration. Punjab has been pushed into a vicious circle of fiscal distress due to the politicians devouring revenue generating resources such as excise, sand and transport by operating a parallel system of sand, transport and liquor mafia. Public debt has mounted to INR 3 lakh crores.  There could be enough revenue generation with the elimination of the parallel illegal economy operated by politicians of various hues.

9]   Vidhan Sabha

1. The minimum session days of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha should be 90 days in a fiscal year.  Minimum attendance of each legislative should be 75 % of the total days of the Session. The proceedings of the house should be duly recorded & kept in the library.  At the end of each session, each Member of the Assembly must go back to his constituency to tell people what he spoke, what he asked and what issues of people were raised in the Assembly. Members should put all the information in this regard on their personal facebook accounts or preferred social media. Salaries should be withheld until they follow this. If they don’t follow this after withholding of their salary, then their pension shouldn’t be allowed. There should be an independent pay commission to decide salary, pension, and allowances of all Vidhan Sabha members.
2. Provision providing official cars, SUVs to MLAs should be withdrawn. No other state in the country gives this facility. State’s responsibility is to protect all and not just politicians & a select few.  Over the years security has become a status symbol. Security cover was provided to the politicians and others in the state, in the 1980s, due to certain reasons which do not exist presently. 
3. It should be mandatory for all political parties in Punjab in the election fray to nominate 33 % women candidates in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

10]   Health 

1. At least 6 percent allocation of the total GSDP should be spent on health services in civil hospitals. In Punjab, 85 % of people go to private doctors daily as outpatients and 45 % as inpatients due to lack of specialists, staff & poor infrastructure in civil hospitals. In view of this, there is a need to provide doctors and other medical staff, better equipment and better infrastructure in all the civil hospitals.
2. The medical bills of the elected representatives, bureaucrats and others entitled for reimbursement of medical expenditure from the state treasury should not be reimbursed for their treatment in private hospitals. Only bills of treatment in civil hospitals should be reimbursed. CCTV network should be installed for monitoring purposes.

11]    Education & Language

1. State Government may be pressurised to have its own educational policy to promote Punjabi language, culture, history and way of life. Primary Education should only be confined to teaching language (Punjabi) & Maths to lighten the burden on the children.
2. The government may be pressurised to increase spending on education in govt schools to prevent privatization of education.
3. A large pool of talent, technical skills and knowledge remain underdeveloped in Punjab due to language barriers. Thus mother tongue Punjabi should be the medium of instruction in all schools upto the tenth standard, for all mainline subjects, except languages other than Punjabi. Punjabi upto the tenth standard should be compulsory for jobs in the state. Progressively, the medium of instruction in all professional courses including engineering & medical should be Punjabi. An expert committee should be set up for preparing the road map within 6 months after the formation of the govt and implementing it in the next academic year. This committee would also decide that the medium of instruction in CBSC, ICSC or any board shall be the mother tongue Punjabi. Students can opt for & learn other languages but not at the cost of Punjabi language. 
4. Higher education is in a mess & drastic decisions need to be taken to improve the functioning of the public universities & govt colleges. There is a need for the creation of a dedicated fund, of a minimum 6% of the GSDP, to finance these universities & for regulating the functioning of the private universities. A Higher Education Regulatory & Monitoring Commission should be set up for the same. As of now, private universities have a free run without any govt control over them. In the absence of a regulatory system, there is a steep fall in the standard of education within the state. 
5. All vacant posts of lecturers should be filled immediately & there should be a regular teaching staff in the govt colleges.     
6. The govt should conduct a survey, for clarity of the next ten years, of the requirements of professionals like Doctors, Engineers, Professors, Management people etc in Punjab. Thereafter, the available seats in all professional courses should be capped at 20% above the requirements & students should be enrolled accordingly.  This will help curb unemployment amongst the students specialising in professional courses in Punjab. Presently students spend large amounts of money for these professional courses which enrol students much beyond available requirements leading to a large number of unemployed professionals in Punjab. 
7. The process of granting education loans to students for skilled & professional courses should be made easier. The loan should be granted taking into consideration the course being pursued by the student. The loan should be paid out to the college / university directly.  As a guarantee, the concerned bank should take copies of the documents like the adhaar card, passport etc. instead of property. 
8. There should be a dynamic policy about ending old courses & beginning new courses according to their relevance at the national & international levels. The govt should make arrangements accordingly. 
9. The development of an all round personality of the youth requires the restoration of the activity of schools, colleges & universities in creating youth festivals with cultural activities of every genre of music, dance, plays, debates etc & thereon, expanding their horizons to interstate competitions too. Resumption of the elections too, which were discontinued in early 1980s,  of the student bodies in all colleges and universities in Punjab with immediate effect. 

12]    Sports

1.  There should be multipurpose stadiums at all district headquarters with all coaching facilities and coaching staff. Sports staff such as DPEs posted in the schools should be put under the control of the sports department. International players should be recruited to train budding players in various games. The Government should make arrangements for the diet and counselling of the players. 
2. A three tier model for the development of sports should be adopted. Firstly, sports for all children should be made  a norm & their participation should be incentivised. Sports development should be made part of the curriculum. And excellence centres for sports should be developed in each cluster of 10 villages. District sports officers should handle this task.
3. Politicians should not be allowed to head sports bodies. Only sports / professional people should run sports bodies. A law should be enacted to this effect.  
4. The government should run counselling clinics for sports persons to end steroid abuse. 
5. Talent search programme should be launched to find players having the potential to become national and international sports people. 
6. There should be grace marks allotted for sports people in academic exams to encourage them to give more time to sport. 
7. Local sports should be given equal weightage & there should be an allocation of a proper budget for this purpose. 
8. All sports people training / playing international level sports, in the rural areas, must be given facilities on par with international standards. 

13]   Environment 

1. Environment has emerged as a major area of concern. In Punjab, Budha Nala is a big headache. It needs to be desilted and revived and by doing so, the problem of pollution of this water stream can be solved to a large extent.  Only treated water should be allowed to be released in it. 
2. Secondly, 25 per cent discharge in Satluj River from the Nangal dam and Ropar barrage should be done round the year and not only during the rainy season. With constant flow of water, this Satluj River, which passes through a vast stretch of Punjab, would engineer the process of self purification and pollution level would decrease tremendously downstream. The release of water around the year is also necessary for protecting the bio diversity of the Satluj river. Punjab must take this issue with the BBMB.
3. For a cleaner Punjab, the State’s other big problem is solid waste management. Each person living in the state contributes 300 to 500 grams to the solid waste daily. The Indore model, for segregation of the solid waste, which has been adopted by 72 countries, should be adopted by Punjab too.  Instead of burning it, the mulching of paddy residue in the fields should be encouraged and fiscal help to farmers should be extended by the Government.  Ultimately the solution of paddy residue lies in viable diversification of the farming sector. 
4. State should not promote the chemical industry which is a major source of toxic pollution for river waters and other water streams. STPs should be set up, wherever required, for treating sewer water and industrial effluents and those involved in polluting the river waters should be held accountable. The Air & Water Pollution Act should be strictly enforced & officers found wanting in enforcing it should be punished by The Environment Protection Authority which should be set up on the lines of The Wildlife Protection Board.  
5.   Water recharging should be made mandatory in the homes measuring 500 yards or more & injection wells should be set up in public places.

14]   Power

1. The Government should come out with a new power policy and switch from thermal power to solar and hydro power. Punjab has the potential to generate 25,000 megawatts of solar power by way of simply putting the solar systems on the rooftops of homes across the state.  The Solar Power Corporation of India is now offering power at the cheap rate of Rs 2 per unit to States like Andhra Pradesh. Punjab should explore such options to provide power to the farm sector. All power purchase agreements (PPA) with private thermal companies should be cancelled within 2 months after formation of the new govt. Rates of power should be renegotiated with these thermal companies through the State Power Regulatory Authority. Likewise, solar power agreements should be renegotiated. Inquiry should be held to fix responsibility of the officers and politicians responsible for signing one sided PPAs with thermal companies thus causing a huge fiscal harm to the state. They should be booked and made to face the law. Government, private buildings and other common properties should be utilised for solar power generation.  Arrangements should be made with The National Power Trading Exchange to buy power for the summer peak seasons well in advance.   

15]   Transport

1. Setting up of a central authority for preparing the time table for buses in the state should be done within three months of the formation of the new govt. Powers vested in this regard at the lower level should be withdrawn. Private transporters flourish by way of managing time tables pertaining to bus operations. At the time of announcing new permits, the mentioning of the time slots available should be made mandatory.
2.     Technical audit of buses should be done. Apparently 22,000 buses are operational against the issuance of 7000 permits. A CCTV network should be put in place to record the entry and exit of every bus at all the main bus stands in the state. On demand, the transport department should provide footage of these cameras to members of the civil society and all others concerned. 

16]   Art & Culture

1. Bad music & cinema are negatively influencing our society. However, actively promoting good content in cultural activities is better than invoking bans on low quality content. Thus the state should institute an annual state awards  to bequeath cash awards to all activities connected to art & culture & literature. This will popularise & provide motivation to create quality content in everything associated & connected with the fields of art & culture 
2. Creating libraries, art centres at Divisional / District headquarters of the state aka Mumbai’s Jehangir Art gallery & Prithvi theatre will promote all genres of music & art & create revenue generation models as these art centres can be leased out too. This will boost & encourage budding talents.  

17]   Excise

1. As far as the excise policy is concerned, the govt should take over the liquor business & should set up liquor depos at the district headquarters for further distribution of liquor to the license holders for which the govt should develop a policy framework. This policy will be effective only when the govt eliminates the illegal sale of illicit liquor & other malpractices associated with it. However, until then, as per the existing model the bidding of the liquor vends should be made transparent & videographed. Excise policy should be put on the website 3 months in advance to seek public opinion. Monopoly of few people in the liquor trade should be stopped. 

18] Urban Development

1. The process of urban development should be streamlined & should be under one umbrella. As of now, three different agencies like Punjab Govt Authority, Punjab Local Body Department, Improvement Trust are involved in urban development. Due to this, there is a lot of chaos in the urban development. 
2. The ever expanding urban areas have started eating away the agricultural land. So the decision should be taken to fix the urban limits to save the agriculture land. Better facilities should be created in the rural areas to stop the rapid process of migration from the countryside to the cities and towns. The govt should stop encroachment of vacant lands in the urban areas. 

19]  Special Status for Punjab

1. Being a border state, special status should be granted to Punjab to give it central grants on the pattern of hill states like Himachal Pradesh, Assam etc. Mohali airport should be fitted with cat 3 facilities to make it a 24×7 hour international airport. International cargo facility should be there to enable export imports by air freight services. There should be direct flights to Canada, USA, UK, Australia & other countries from Chandigarh & Amritsar airports. This can be possible by rationalising the aircraft parking charges by the concerned aviation authorities. The VAT on aircraft fuel should also be reduced. Thus the injustice being done to Punjab in this regard should be ended.  The Punjab govt should take up this issue with the Centre & resolve it within a year.  
2. Punjab is a global brand today in many sectors & should take advantage of this fact. For marketing purposes and getting premium on the products, Brand Punjab can be developed like gold mark or wool mark etc. Punjab had a vibrant & strong, small and medium scale industry along GT road. For example, Jalandhar hand tools & sports goods, Ludhiana cycles, auto parts, hosiery etc, the list is endless. But with globalization, accompanied by government apathy, industrial development took a backseat and industry in Punjab started losing steam.

20]   Tolls

1. Highways should be made toll free with immediate effect. Instead of burdening the road users with toll taxes, the expenditure of the highways should be collected from the revenue generated from the commercials put up along the highways. Until this arrangement comes into existence, all details of the contracts including project costs, recovery periods, toll rates etc with the builders of all roads & highways should be displayed at the toll barriers. 

21]   Draconian laws

1. Revoking of all draconian acts in operation such as UAPA, Sedition Act etc. State acts of this kind, if any, should be repealed. The state govt must work to get such central acts repealed.

22]   River Waters

1. Distribution of river waters should be as per the riparian rules  as decided in the Helsinki conference. The State Government should make all efforts to get it done. The section 5 of Punjab Termination Agreement act 2004 should be revoked. Punjab must get royalty on the river waters being used by other states and the amount of the royalty should be decided by a committee of experts.

23]   IT

1. IT sector could be a game changer, for Punjab, as a revenue generator. It is suitable for Punjab as it’s a green industry from an environmental perspective & doesn’t require a lot of valuable land space.  There is an estimate that IT exports would be in the range of US$ 400 billion for March 2022. The Central Government has focused on cyber security, hyper scale computing, artificial intelligence and block chain. The Central Govt has announced the setting up of a cyber lab besides an online capacity building programme on cyber crime investigation. Mohali should be developed to take advantage of this bundle of opportunities.

24]   Non Resident Indians

1. Services to the NRIs should also be covered by the Right To Service Act. A law should be enacted to protect the properties of the NRIs in the state. With NRIs becoming citizens of the countries they live in, their property rights in the state need to be protected. At the time of sale of properties, NRIs face a lot of legal problems such as the presentation of Aadhar cards etc.  
2. There should be a facility for the NRIs to appear via video conferencing in court. Civil & other disputes/the practice of declaring them proclaimed offenders ex parte should be abolished.
3. Black list of NRIs should be revoked.  

25]   Cabinet Meetings

1. Minutes of the meeting of Cabinet should be put on the official website of the Punjab govt after each meeting.

26]   Technocrats as Department Heads

1. Technocrats, who move up the ladder in the department by way of promotion, should be appointed as department heads. All posts at the directorate level including of the Directors (department heads) should be manned by technocrats. 

27]   Employment Generation & Social Security 

1. Employment Generation Department should collect category wise data of Unskilled, Semi-Skilled and Skilled unemployed people for giving them unemployment allowance. It should be Rs 4000 for unskilled, Rs 6000 for semi-skilled and Rs 8000 for skilled per month. Along with this allowance, legal provision should be in place to punish those claiming this allowance by giving false undertakings. The Government should play an active role in finding jobs for the unemployed people.   
2. Loan up to Rs 1.5 lakh for poor sections of the society including SCs, STs for starting self employment ventures. The unemployment allowance should be treated as collateral security for advancing loans to these sections of the society.
3. Haryana pattern should be followed for granting monthly pensions to old people, widows, physically challenged people & destitute children. The Punjab govt should increase their pension from Rs.1500 monthly to Rs.2500 monthly. 

28]  Recruitment

1. Transparency should be maintained for the recruitment of all govt posts. All the interviews of the candidates should be videographed & preserved.  If any candidate challenges the recruitment, the same video should be put on the public domain.

29]   Free Sand

1. The income to the state from sand is minimal but it has become a main source of corruption. Hence, it should be available free of cost to people. As an alternative, 1% cess should be charged on the value of the home or project being constructed, as is done to collect construction labour welfare funds from builders, government projects and homes under construction having value above Rs 20 lakh. The authorities approving the building plans should collect the amounts. This will stop corruption & boost revenue generation.

30] Manifesto of Political Parties

1. The Manifesto released by political parties on the eve of elections should be declared a legal document by the Election Commissison of India by making Amendments in the relevant laws. The President of the concerned political party should declare in an affidavit : Our party will treat this as as a legal document & implement it. My party will be liable for legal action if it fails to implement it.  

31] Recall of MLAs

1. The newly elected govt shall make the provision of recall in the Zila Parishads, Block Samities and Village Panchayats like certain other states. There should be legal provision of the recall of the MLAs on the pattern of members of Zila Parishads, Block Samities etc. If any MLA fails to deliver on promises made by him and involves him or herself directly or indirectly in the loot of public resources, there should be a law to launch proceedings to recall him or her by following a mechanism laid down for this purpose. The Elected Members of the House should collectively take up this issue with the Central Government to amend the relevant law suitably to make provisions of the recall of MLAs who fail to deliver. 

32]  Proposal by Jujhda Punjab

1. Meanwhile Jujhda Punjab proposes a mechanism for the candidates in the election fray agreeing with Agenda of Jujhda Punjab. Any candidate accepting & agreeing with the above mentioned points of the Jujhda Punjab Agenda would have to declare on his social media accounts : “I would abide by this agenda and faithfully work to implement the points mentioned in it. If I fail to deliver in this regard, the Gram Sabhas & the Ward Committees can move a no confidence resolution against me on the completion of my 2 years as MLA. If more than 66% of the Gram Sabhas & Ward Committees of my constituency pass a resolution expressing no confidence against me following a due process of law, I would quit as MLA. I have given this statement after thoroughly reading & understanding the Agenda.