CHANDIGARH: After taking the oath on Monday, Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said that now it will be easy for the people to meet chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi and there will be zero tolerance for corruption.
Randhawa said that it will be ensured that cabinet ministers sit in the secretariat on a daily basis so that officers also come in time to the office and the system of camp office will be discouraged.
“If the ministers will not sit in the secretariat then who will sit there?,” he questioned. Even the cabinet ministers and Congress MLAs used to complain about the accessibility of former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh and he hardly used to sit in his office in the secretariat.
The deputy chief minister also said that they had a detailed discussion with the new chief minister on Monday to check corruption. Out of the 18-point agenda which the Congress high command had earlier handed over to then chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh for implementation, Randhawa ensured that the new cabinet will implement five of these agenda points by October 1. He added that the new Punjab cabinet has 90 days’ time and it will definitely deliver as people do not believe in ‘lecturebazi’ but are only interested in getting works done.
The deputy chief minister also said that the chief minister has said that he does not want huge security paraphernalia around him and by Monday evening there may be a decision about the cut in chief minister’s security. “The security cover should not hamper the accessibility of the chief minister,” he pointed out.
To a question, he replied that till now no decision has been taken on the change of the chief secretary Vini Mahajan and DGP Dinkar Gupta. Randhawa said that he is yet to get charge of the departments like the other deputy chief minister Om Prakash Soni and the Punjab cabinet will see expansion very soon. “Let us first get the departments. We will do everything. We are standing on issues of chhitta(heroin), cancellation of power purchase agreements (PPAs), justice in sacrilege cases and others,” he added.
