What's keeping Navjot Singh Sidhu busy these days
Navjot Singh Sidhu has been a very busy man these past weeks. As the minister in charge of tourism and local government in the Amarinder Singh cabinet, the former cricketer has set the ball rolling on a number of long overdue urban projects.
These projects include proposals to clean up Ludhiana’s reeking Buddha Nullah and the Tung Dhab Nullah in Amritsar; bringing in efficient and environmentally friendly management of a 20-year-old garbage dump outside the Sikh holy city; and a promise to roll out online access to 67 urban services across Punjab’s municipalities.
While a fairly large bouquet of citizen-centric services are already available to urban residents at the numerous Suvidha centres opened during the previous Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government in 2016, Sidhu, on February 26, tied up with Nandan Nilekani’s e-Governance Foundation, which will manage the transition of services to e-platforms.
The plan, he says, is to provide online access to an entire range of services pertaining to property tax, water and sewerage management, complaints and grievances, licensing, fire services, verification services, birth and death registration. These would be made available within a year via an urban local body’s web portal as well as a mobile application.
Besides, Sidhu’s department will also collaborate with the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) to clean up the Buddha Nullah and Tung Dhab Nullah – two of Punjab’s worst polluted drains. The former cricketer has also roped in Balbir Singh Seechewal, the much-decorated environmentalist and religious leader, who cleaned up the Kali Bein rivulet in central Punjab.
And towards fulfilling a promise he made to the residents of Amritsar when he was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 2004, Sidhu has commissioned a scientific study to suggest ways for the long-pending clean-up and efficient management of the swelling dump of garbage outside Amritsar city.
(Courtesy of Mail Today)