By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 7 Apr: Governor Lt Gen Gurmit Singh (Retd) said, today, that the welfare of soldiers and their dependants should be given top priority in Uttarakhand. The Governor was addressing a meeting of the ‘Uttarakhand Sainik Punarvas Sanstha’ at the Raj Bhawan, here, today. He said that the Sanstha would have to work with an effective vision and mission. It has to become self-accountable.
The Governor directed Principal Secretary, Soldiers’ Welfare, L Fanai and other officials to ensure that adequate data on the beneficiaries of the Sanstha, including Ex-Servicemen, Veer Naris, Soldiers’ Dependants and physically disabled soldiers, should be available digitally. He added that an AI enabled Android mobile based portal and website of the Sainik Punarvas Sanstha should be developed so that the ex-servicemen and their dependants can easily get in touch with the organisation. Also, the problems of soldiers, ex-servicemen and the families of those who received gallantry awards should be resolved on priority basis. He gave special emphasis on the welfare and rehabilitation of martyrs’s widows.
The Governor instructed Secretary Dr Ranjit Kumar Sinha to provide an incentive of Rs 5001 to each of the disabled ex-servicemen of the state on behalf of Raj Bhawan. He added that the Sanstha should be completely modernised. Efforts should be made to open training centres for army recruitment in every district. The playgrounds of the schools can be used for this purpose. The Sanstha needed to have ESM play the role of game-changers in organic farming, natural farming, forestry, reverse migration in the border areas. It needed to make efforts to increase the participation of daughters of ex-servicemen in NDA, military services and other prestigious central and state government services. Schemes run by the Central Government, State Government and the Organization for the welfare of soldiers needed to be coordinated.
The Governor will soon visit the farms of the Sanstha. He directed maximum utilisation of the 1423 acres of land of the organisation for cultivation of aromatic, medicinal herbs and organic farming.
Principal Secretary L Fanai, Secretary to Governor Dr Ranjit Kumar Sinha, Additional Secretary Swati S Bhadauria, Finance Controller of Raj Bhawan Dr Tripti Srivastava and senior officers of Uttarakhand Sainik Punarvas Sanstha were present on the occasion.
