Will end child marriage, free forest land from encroachment, and eradicate poverty: CM

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma made it clear on the floor of the Assembly today that the Government would end child marriage and make forest lands free from encroachment. He also said that the government had adopted a four-pronged strategy to eradicate poverty in the state.

In his reply to the debate on the Governor’s speech today, the Chief Minister said, “Eviction is not the key issue. The key issue is the population explosion. The pace at which the population increases, if not checked now, will leave the state with no free land. When we evict encroachers, they settle in some other part of the state. To maintain biodiversity, we will have to evict encroachers from forest land.”

Linking child marriage with population boom, the Chief Minister said, “When underage girls give birth to children, population explosion is inevitable. Thus, child marriage will have to stop in Assam. The government will carry out anti-child marriage drives at an interval of six months. The government is even contemplating bringing an Act to increase the term of imprisonment for offenders in child marriage to ten years from the existing two years.”

He said, “The government has a four-pronged strategy to eradicate poverty in the state. The four prongs are the Orunodoi Scheme, ration cards, health insurance, and housing. We will raise the number of Orunodoi beneficiaries up to 35 lakh, who will also get ration cards, and the ration cardholders will have health insurance. The government will provide such beneficiaries with housing under the PMAY or under the State government’s own schemes.”

The Chief Minister further said, “Now Assam is on the way to a renaissance. The Opposition parties paint such a picture that Assam is a hotbed of turmoil. However, the ground situation is quite different. The Opposition speaks of unemployment. Can they name a state that has no unemployment problem? We are on our way to providing jobs to one lakh youths. The important achievement is that the youths are getting such jobs without any political interference or bribes. We will announce an all-time big scheme for self-employment in the Annual Budget tomorrow.”

Regarding loans, the Chief Minister said, “Taking a loan is not a weakness. Lenders give loans only to those who can repay them. We take loan very much under the RBI guidelines. Loan repayment has certain rules. The repayment of some loans starts after ten years, and some after two years. We will repay a loan installment of Rs 2,000 crore on March 27, 2023, against the loan taken ten years ago during the Tarun Gogoi regime. Every state of the country takes loans.”

Replying to the Opposition members’ allegation that the State Government victimizes the minority community regarding child marriage, eviction, or otherwise, the Chief Minister said, “The Muslims in Assam were never peaceful under any government in the past the way they are now. Youths belonging to the minority community get government jobs, PMAY houses, benefits under the Orunodoi scheme, developed roads, schools, and colleges in their localities, etc. There has been no communal violence in the state during our tenure. The government does not discriminate anybody on communal lines.” The Chief Minister said that the police would retaliate when an accused attacked them. “However, every action should be within the purview of the law. We have taken action against police personnel found acting beyond the law. If drug peddlers, rapists, and others wield pistols against the police, the police will retaliate. An encounter is an incident that occurs at a specific time and in a specific situation. The opposition taking the side of criminals in the encounter does not augur well. Crime rates have come down by 15 percent from 2016 to 2022 as the police force is active in the state,” he said.

He said that this government was working relentlessly for the development of the state. “The state had three medical colleges in 2016. We now have 12 medical colleges. The construction of eight new universities is underway in the state. I do believe that Assam will be one of the top states when I complete my five-year tenure. This is because we have been working to make strides despite the limited resources,” he said.

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