Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday said the kind of reforms the present state government had introduced to ensure ‘maximum governance- minimum government’ is what no one thought was ever possible.

“There is a need to distinguish between bona fide and mala fide intentions. We may make mistakes, but our intent is never wrong. Starting from those at the bottom of the pyramid out utmost priority, as they are the ones who have first right on the government,” Khattar said.

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While launching a frontal attack on the Opposition claim over the discontinuation of the old-age pension of about 2.70 lakh beneficiaries in the state, the CM described these claims as an empty vessel that makes the loudest noise.

Addressing a Press conference today, the CM said the Opposition can only make noise on this issue, but they are unaware of the ground reality. “Opposition will never share the details about the number of new pension beneficiaries added in the last two years, they only talk about pension deductions by tricking the figures.  As many as 2.61 lakh new beneficiaries have been added in two years till March 2022,” he said.

The CM said around 2.41 lakh people have died in these two years, their pension has been discontinued. “Besides this, there are about 21,000 having an annual income of more than Rs 3.50 lakh, therefore their pension has been discontinued, while there are around 15000 cases where discrepancies related to age have been found and because of which they have not been able to avail the pension benefits,” he added.

He said till now the pension of any beneficiary has not been discontinued falling in the annual income range between Rs Two lakh to Rs 3.5 lakh. The CM said through Parivar Pehchan Patra, it was found that there are almost 18000 widows who are now married, however their widow pension continued.

“For the first time, our government has also started giving the pension benefit of Rs 2500 to the people suffering from serious diseases like cancer and HIV,” he said.

Divulging the details about the PPP data, the CM said that in the fifth phase data of around 30.06 lakh families has been sent for verification. Till now 13.53 lakh verified families have an annual income of less than Rs.1.80 lakh. Out of the verified families, the percentage of the families belonging to Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes is 31 and 37 respectively, he added.

“Zero tolerance policy has been adopted against corruption. We are making dedicated efforts to take the drive against corruption to the grassroot level. Opposition is raising hue and cry for the steps we are taking to curb corruption. Since 2014, as many as 71 FIRs have been registered and 603 accused arrested in examination scams” he said.