As the Lok Sabha poll is round the corner, Sarbananda Sonowal on his 17th visit to the Barak Valley as Assam Chief Minister hurriedly announced sops and laid foundation stone of several projects in the valley where the BJP lost two seats (Karimganj and Silchar) in 2014 general elections.
Putting an end to the long pending demand of the people of Barak Valley, Chief Minister Sonowal laid the foundation stone for setting up a Mini Secretariat for Barak Valley at Silchar during a programme held at the Police Parade Ground in Silchar on Saturday.
After arriving in the valley, Chief Minister Sonowal, first of all inaugurated the Barak bridge that would ease the traffic congestion connecting places like the airport in Silchar, Lakhipur, Borkhola, Udarbond, Haflong and Imphal.
After taking a few steps in this newly-constructed bridge, Chief Minister Sonowal moved to Silchar’s police parade ground to lay the foundation of five other projects.
With the press of a button, he laid the foundation for the Mini Secretariat, district library-cum-auditorium, another new bridge over Barak connecting Dudpatil with Silchar, a stadium with running tracks and Swami Vivekananda Research Centre at Assam University’s sprawling campus.
Chief Minister Sonowal in his address said, “Our focus is to develop young minds in three areas – quality education, excel in sports and become culturally rich.”
He added, “In order to compete with rest of India, we have to alleviate ourselves. We have plans to set up many more things in this region for which the cooperation of the people of this valley is what I want,” said Sonowal.
CM Shri @sarbanandsonwal inaugurated the RCC Bridge No. 1/1 over river Barak at Sadarghat on Silchar-Kumbhirgram road.
Constructed under NLCPR, the bridge will ease conveyance within Silchar and mark dawn of improved infrastructure in the region. pic.twitter.com/TsJlwYZ6sU
— Chief Minister Assam (@CMOfficeAssam) March 2, 2019
Later, talking to the media before flagging off a BJP Yuva Morcha (youth wing) bike rally that is being carried out throughout the country, Sonowal said, “What we have done in the last 34 months, the Congress party which was in power for 55 years, did nothing. We are a party which believes in achieving and doing things rather sit back and make false promises.”
“For example, setting up of the Mini Secretariat would ease out many departmental tasks for the needy who earlier used to travel all the way to Guwahati and wait nonchalantly for their turn to come up,” said Assam CM Sonowal.
To spearhead the infrastructure development in the valley, Sonowal said in the last two-and-a-half years, his government has started the work of constructing 2000 km road in Barak Valley and work for converting 120 wooden bridges into RCC bridge are also going on full swing.
He also said his government has also decided to build medical college and engineering college at Karimganj.
Sonowal further said under the Chief Minister Samagra Gramya Unnayan Yojana, more than 30 playgrounds will be built in the Barak Valley region.
Assam Environment & Forest Minister Parimal Suklabaidya while speaking on the occasion gave a snapshot of various development projects of the state government.