Cash in hand, fines wiped clean, and a college getting two new degree courses — Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu brought a clutch of welfare announcements to Jhanduta Assembly constituency in Bilaspur district on Wednesday, 12 August 2026, targeting fishermen, students, and rural residents in a single visit.

Rs 52.5 lakh transferred directly to 1,500 fishermen

The centrepiece of the day was a direct-benefit transfer under the Mukhya Mantri Machhuaar Samman Nidhi Yojana: 1,500 fishermen received Rs 3,500 each, amounting to a combined Rs 52.50 lakh pushed straight to their bank accounts via DBT. The scheme is Himachal Pradesh's dedicated welfare instrument for its small inland fishing population, and the transfer represents one of its larger single-day disbursements in the constituency.

Sukhu did not stop at cash. He announced a full waiver of the five-times penalty that had been levied on fishing committees — a punitive fine that had long rankled the community. The relief was immediate and unambiguous: the multiplier is gone.

Cold-storage subsidy raised, safety gear funded

For fishermen who store their catch, the cold-storage subsidy jumps from 70% to 80% — a ten-percentage-point increase that directly reduces post-harvest losses. Separately, the government will provide Rs 50 lakh for life jackets for fishermen across the state and Rs 10 lakh for landing facilities in the area, addressing a basic safety gap on Himachal's inland water bodies.

Himachal Pradesh governments have periodically funded fisheries safety equipment and infrastructure, but combining a subsidy hike with safety gear and landing infrastructure in one announcement signals a more layered approach to the sector's needs.

Ten link roads and a college upgrade for Jhanduta

Beyond fisheries, Sukhu announced Rs 10 lakh each for ten connectivity roads — a total of Rs 1 crore earmarked to complete link-road construction work in the hill constituency, where unfinished roads are a persistent grievance. Each road gets its own dedicated allocation rather than a pooled fund, a structuring choice that makes individual project accountability easier to track.

At Government Degree College, Jhanduta, the CM announced the launch of BCA (Bachelor of Computer Applications) and BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration) courses — a direct response to the demand for professional undergraduate options in a region where students currently travel long distances for such programmes. The courses are expected to come under the 2026-27 academic session.

Senior Congress figures accompanied the CM: Technical Education Minister Rajesh Dharmaini, former ministers Ram Lal Thakur and Bambar Thakur, former MLAs Tilak Raj Sharma and Beeru Ram Kishore, Congress candidate Vivek Kumar, Mahila Congress president Tripta Thakur, District Congress president Anjana Dhiman, and Gudiya Saksham Board chairperson Aruna Mahajan.

A constituency that intersects fishing livelihoods, rural connectivity gaps, and limited higher-education access just got a government visit designed to address all three at once — the follow-through on roads, the cold-storage subsidy rollout, and the college courses will tell the real story.