Manohar Lal Khattar was re-elected as the chief minister of Haryana last year.
Over 850 village panchayats, or 13 per cent out of the total, in Haryana have asked the state not to open a liquor shop in their area from this fiscal, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said on Friday.
"A total of 872 gram sabhas have passed resolutions against opening liquor vends in their areas and they have sent them to the government," Khattar told the media here.
A gram sabha is a group of voters in a village.
He said shunning liquor was one of 101 programmes launched by his government, which is in coalition with the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) led by Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala.
The state legislative assembly on November 27 last year passed the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Second Amendment) Bill, allowing one-tenth of gram sabha members to decide on closure of liquor vends in areas under their panchayat.
Official sources told IANS that authorising the gram sabhas to close liquor vends was one of the key issues raised by the Dushyant Chautala-led JJP during the poll campaign in Haryana.
To provide relief to the rural population, the government has already started the process of abolishing the practice of 'Lal Dora'.
'Lal Dora' relates to land that is used for non-agricultural purposes and comprises a part of the village habitation. Earlier, the houses or land in the 'Lal Dora' area remained unregistered.
The Chief Minister, who was accompanied by Dushyant Chautala and Jails Minister Ranjit Singh Chautala, said Sirsi village in Karnal district became the first village to be freed from 'Lal Dora'.
The BJP-JJP government, which came to the helm in a post-election alliance on October 27, 2019, completed 100 days in office two days back.
Khattar said he was busy in the Delhi assembly elections where campaigning came to an end on Thursday evening.
In a first-of-its-kind in the country, the Chief Minister said his government has launched the Parivar Pehchan Patra project, a 14-digit unique identity card, which contains personal details of each family member.
Based on the Socio-Economic and Caste Census 2011, the database of about 54 lakh families will be covered through this exercise.
The benefits of various government schemes can be easily availed by the eligible household by showing their Parivar Pehchan Patra.
It will serve to better transparency among government and residents, Khattar said.
The family ID will help in the delivery of citizen-centric schemes running in the state, he added.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)