This was announced by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal while addressing a Sanman Samaroh organised by Bharati Valmiki Dharam Samaj for launching various welfare schemes for the uplift of dalits and weaker sections here today.

The Chief Minister said the state government was exploring the enormous potential in the industrial sector for employment opportunities and big industrial units were being persuaded to give preference to Punjabi youth for jobs, particularly dalits.

Attacking the Congress for exploiting the weaker sections during the last 50 years, he said the Congress regime had done nothing for the weaker sections. The Congress government had used dalits as their votebank and took no interest in providing them even basic amenities.

The CM claimed that the SAD-BJP government had launch many schemes for the weaker sections including Shagun scheme, houses for houseless and free power for dalits.

, whereas the governments being run by Congress, CPM and BSP and other parties had failed to do anything concrete for them. Badal also said that the state would provide better educational facilities for the children of the weaker sections.

Charanjit Singh Atwal, Speaker, Punjab Vidhan Sabha, speaking at the function said that after Dr B.R. Ambedkar, it was only Badal who had made substantial efforts to ameliorate the lot of the poor.

Maheshinder Singh Grewal, Medical Education Minister said that the Congress governments had always exploited dalits.