Reject politics of vendetta and confrontation: Badal

Ruprnagar, September 2, 2012:  Cutting across the political affiliations Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today called upon all the political parties to sink their differences and work in harmony for the overall development and prosperity of the country as well as state.

Addressing a massive gathering here after the inauguration of the Rs.9 crore NCC Academy over an area of 8 acre by the Minister of State for Defence MM Pallam Raju alongwith the Chief Minister, Badal said that it was the high time for all the political parties to discard the politics of vendetta and confrontation which must be replaced by the politics based on consensus as the divisive politics was absolutely meaningless and could not yield any tangible results for the growth of the state as well as the prosperity of its people. The Chief Minister asked the political parties of different shades and opinions to come forward to work zealously especially the Congress in the process of development of Punjab right from the grass root level of village panchayat to the state government. 

He thanked Raju for offering an opportunity to all the major political parties viz. Shiromani Akali Dal, BJP and Congress to share a common platform on this historic occasion, when two state-or-the-art NCC academies, first of its kind in the country has been dedicated to the nation adding in a lighter vein the Chief Minister urged Raju to visit Punjab quite often to keep this congenial political atmosphere intact.

On the occasion, the Chief Minister sought Raju’s personal intervention to impress upon the Union Ministry of Defence for reversing the existing criteria of recruitment in Armed forces, which was now being done on the basis of population to the earlier one based on the parameters of capability and merit to accommodate our youth. 

He pointed out that our state had been adversely affected as there was a time when Punjabis dominated the defence services with majority say nearly 50% of soldiers from state besides the top brass.  Punjab soldiers and farmers were known for their patriotism and enormous contribution in making our country self reliant in food production for which Punjab was aptly referred as ‘sword arm’ and ‘food bowl’ of India.   

He said we the Punjabis have inherited the legacy of bravery from  Sri Guru Arjan Dev ji, Sri Guru Teg Bahadur ji and Sri Gobind Singh ji who made supreme sacrifices and the same tradition and spirit of gallantry was still alive even as today. 

The Chief Minister also requested Raju to take up the issue of expeditious construction of the North Zone Service Selection Center,  to be come up at Rupnagar for which a the state government had already provided a land of 200 acres. 

Badal hoped that these NCC training academies at Ropar and Malout would prove to be a milestone in the history of NCC and would act as a catalyst to imbibe a spirit of bravery and patriotism amongst the young cadets.   He said that the NCC academy would exclusively impart training to 3500 boy cadets. 

 With the opening of these academies around 55000 cadets from the state would be imparted training to enable them to join Army, Navy and Air force thereby brightening their prospects to choose defence services as their career. 

 In his address, MM Pallam Raju complimented the Punjab government who pioneered in establishing these NCC Academies in the country at the request of Defence Ministry.  He said India was a young nation with nearly 55 million youth falling in this category.  This potent force, in true terms, was our future.  We need to ensure the growth of our youth by empowering them with skills and these skills have to be relevant to the emerging economic environment.  He said that we would need to skill/upskill 500 million youth by 2022.  This was a challenging task and would require fundamental education reform and enhancement of supplementary skill development.  He apprised the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and set up National Skill Development Corporation to facilitate the development and upgrading of skills through Skill Training Program.  Mr. Raju envisioned that NCC could play a major in inculcating the basic core values important for this workforce to be effective and productive which included the values enshrined in the motto of the NCC "Unity and Discipline".     Responding to the issues raised by the Chief Minister, Raju assured him that he would soon take up the matter of recruitment on the basis of capability and merit instead of population criteria with the union Defence Minister AK Antony besides ensuring the speedy completion of North Service Center at Rupnagar. The State Minister for Defence also informed Badal that he was alive to the problems of ex-servicemen, who constituted a sizeable chunk of state's population in Punjab and assured the best health care facilities besides post retirement employment opportunities to them to enable them to rehabilitate so that they could lead a life with dignity.

Prominent amongst others who were present on the occasion included Health and Family Welfare Minister Madan Mohan Mittal, MP Anandpur Sahib Ravneet Singh Bitu, leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha Sunil Jakhar, MLA Ropar Dr. Daljeet Singh Cheema, MLA Chamkaur Sahib Charanjit Singh Channi, former Minister Satwant Kaur Sandhu.  Besides Director General NCC Lt. Gen. PS Bhalla and Additional Director General NCC Maj. Gen. PS Mander, Deputy Commissioner Pardeep Kumar Aggarwal and SSP Jatinder Singh Aulakh. 

NCC boys and girls cadets from all over Punjab participated in the function and regaled the audience with horse riding skills, bhangra and gidha.  Apart from these the function was largely attended by the people from different walks of life, senior leaders and party workers of SAD/BJP besides members of SGPC.