Chandigarh, Aug 23 (PTI) After Congress MLA Kiran Choudhary claimed in the Haryana Assembly that there is acute water shortage in Bhiwani district, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday formed a committee to probe into the matter and asked the panel to submit its report within 24 hours.

The committee will be headed by Additional Chief Secretary, Irrigation and Water Resources Department, Devender Singh.

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Khattar made the announcement in the state assembly while replying to a calling attention motion tabled by Choudhary, who is an MLA from Tosham in Bhiwani district.

Congress MLA Choudhary has claimed that people living in villages in Bhiwani district have been facing acute shortage of drinking water for the past three months.

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The panel would be submitting its reports within 24 hours, the chief minister said, adding that action would be taken against the officers of the department if the claim made by the Congress member was found to be true.

The committee's report would be presented to the speaker, Khattar said.

In response to another calling attention motion tabled by Congress MLA Varun Chaudhary, state Education Minister Kanwar Pal informed the House that under the component 'Free Textbooks/Workbooks', an amount of Rs 250 per student from class 1 to 5 and Rs 400 per student from class 6 to 8 has been approved.

This amount will soon be transferred to the accounts of the students through the DBT system. For this, the process of verification of the bank accounts of students has been completed, the education minister said.

He said in the meeting of the High Powered Purchase Committee (HPPC) chaired by the chief minister in June, it was decided that the amount for books per student should be transferred in the respective accounts of the students from class 1 to 8.

Pal said e-books of all classes have been uploaded on the official website of State Council of Educational Research and Training, Gurgaon.

In view of the National Education Policy, 2020, the process of developing a new National Curriculum Framework has been initiated, after which the syllabus is expected to change from next year. From the next academic session, new textbooks will be printed according to the new syllabus, he said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)