The Chief Minister of Punjab, Amarinder Singh announced in the State Assembly that his government would waive of the loans of up to Rs 50,000 for the people belonging to the Scheduled Caste as well as the economically weaker sections. These loans were given by the State Schedule Caste Corporation and the State Backward Classes Corporation.
The Amarinder Government has already launched other schemes for the upliftment of the lives of the backward class as well as the women in the society and a few of those include:
- Reservation in jobs as well as filling all vacant posts of SCs in government in a time-bound manner to clear the backlog.
- Allotment of free houses to the homeless through a new scheme will be initiated both in the rural and urban areas in the period 2017-2018. The government will also allocate low-cost houses to economically weaker sections. This will be announced during the budget session.
- 30 per cent reservation to SCs in all allotments by the Department of Housing and Urban Development will be implemented.
- There will also be an increase in reservation for freedom fighters and their families to 3 per cent.
- Priority to women and senior citizens will be given during allotments in State.
- There will also be an increase in threshold limit of annual income for pensions.
- The Government is also working towards undertaking verification to delete fake people enrolled for pension by the previous government.
- Poor Christian and Muslim families will also be included in the benefits provided by the state government to SCs and OBCs, including free electricity, pension, loan waiver, and scholarship.
- Financial benefits to SCs, OBCs and minorities under the schemes such as Ashirwad, Post-Matric Scholarship will also be refined.
- Provision of loans under Venture Capital Fund and the Atta-Dal scheme is also being looked into.
- Enhancement in the scheme amounts of the projects Shagun and Ashirward is also being contemplated.
- Decisions taken regarding the financial benefits, enhancement of scheme amounts and provision of loan is scheduled to be announced in the budget.
- The government has also decided to allocate land for burial for the Muslims and the Christians.
- The existing State Women Commission will be strengthened to ensure the provision of increase to 50% in PRIs and ULBs for women as well as reservation of 33% for women/girls in government jobs, and provision of free education to girls in all government schools and colleges from nursery to Ph.D.