Chandigarh, April 28– Haryana Chief Minister, Sh. Manohar Lal said that public participation is necessary in development projects of the state. He said this while interacting with the prominent citizens of Sonipat Lok Sabha constituency here today.

The Chief Minister has started this initiative of meeting the prominent citizens of the Lok Sabha Constituencies with the view to have a first hand progress report of various development projects and schemes in the constituencies and to know the requirement of the people of the area for launching new projects. As a part of this initiative, earlier, the Chief Minister has interacted with the prominent people of Ambala Lok Sabha constituency.

In the four-hour-long interaction, the Chief Minister sought feedback regarding ongoing development works and projects to be launched in the area. During the interaction, senior officers of Revenue, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Finance, Development and Panchayat, Health and Family Welfare, Public Health Engineering Department, Social Justice and Empowerment and Irrigation and Water Resources Departments were also present.

The Chief Minister said that it is the prime duty of prominent citizens to have an eye on the ongoing schemes so as to ensure the benefits of schemes should reach the actual beneficiaries in a time-bound manner. This would also help in checking the pilferage.

He said that earlier the land was acquired for the announced projects but the project got delayed due to the litigation. For solving such problems, the state government has now launched the e-Bhoomi Portal to ensure transparency in land deals for development projects in the State. Its objective is to prevent the forced sale of land to the farmers and to involve the landowners in decision-making while earmarking the sites for development projects in the state. Every citizen will ensure transparency in land deals in the state through this online portal.

Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Sh. V. Umashankar, Advisor (Irrigation) to Chief Minister, Sh. Devender Singh, Political Advisor to Chief Minister, Sh. B. B. Bharti, OSD, Sh. Sudhanshu Gautam and Sh. Bhupeshwar Dayal were also present on the occasion.