HP to allot land to landless for house construction: CM

Shimla, Aug 25 (UNI) Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today said his government will acquire land from the private sector to be distributed among the urban poor in the state.

Replying to a question by Rohit Thakur (Cong) and Ishwar Singh Dhiman and Damodar Dass (both BJP), he said his government had already launched a scheme to provide two biswas of land to the poor in the rural areas and one biswas in the urban areas.

Mr Singh said all the eligible and landless poor can approach the respective deputy commissioners and added that the government was also considering a proposal to extend the scheme for the nomadic Gujjars.

The Centre has allowed the state government to distribute about 25 kanals of forest land to the landless people in the state.

Intervening in the debate, state Revenue Minister Sat Mahajan said according to a survey by the state government in 2003-04, about 1205 landless families have been identified in the state except Kangra, Una, Hamirpur and Bilaspur districts, where the survey was still being conducted.

Replying to another question by Ravinder Ravi and Khimi Ram (both BJP), the Chief Minister said the state government has opened 10 degree colleges and 23 primary schools during the present financial year.

Mr Singh said while all the degree colleges have started functioning from this year, 12 primary schools out of a total have been made functional.

Replying to a supplementary by Virender Kanwar, P K Dhumal, Ramesh Dhawala and ID Dhiman (all BJP), he said if the minimum student ratio in every school were to be implemented, several schools in the state would have to be closed.

''This was due to the opening of private schools in their vicinity,'' he said adding the government was trying to improve the quality of education in the government schools.

Mr Singh said the state government had proposed to open about 200 middle schools this year, but no school has been made functional this year, while promising to improve the infrastructure in the government schools.

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