KAPURTHALA, Punjab—Taking a jibe on the statement of former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh regarding fiscal emergency in the state, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Badal said not to worry about the issues of governance, the Lok Sabha MP from Amritsar must try to set the house of their party in order.
He said that before issuing such baseless statements, Captain and state Congress Chief Mr. Partap Singh Bajwa must try to ensure discipline in their party by nailing the prevailing infighting.
Mr. Badal also called upon the entire opposition to play a constructive role by co-operating with the government in making Punjab a frontrunner state in the country. “Healthy criticism by opposition is always welcome but criticism for the sake of criticism is undesirable and unwarranted,” he said.
The Chief Minister said that the step-motherly treatment by Congress coupled with its regressive policies have broken the backbone of Punjab’s economy. He reiterated that the Congress has always adopted an anti-Punjab stance against the state due to which the development of the state has suffered a lot. Badal said that Punjab’s economy has been adversely affected due to the partition of the country and prolonged militancy but it got the fatal blow when Congress granted incentives to the neighboring states, which led to the mass exodus of the industry of the state to these hilly states.
Taking the Congress party to cudgels, the Chief Minister said that it has a notorious past of adopting an anti-Punjab stance due to which the state has suffered a lot. Badal said that Punjab was probably the only state in the country which has been hitherto deprived of its capital.
Replying to another query, the Chief Minister said that he would soon meet the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for seeking the release of pending Rs 400 crore sanctioned by the 13th Finance Commission. He said that the funds sanctioned by constitutional body like Finance Commission should be given to the state adding that he would soon take up this issue with the Union Government.
Terming that diversification of agriculture as the need of the hour, the Chief Minister said that it was a must for bailing out the farmers of the state from current agrarian crisis. Badal said that the hard working and resilient farmers of the state had made the country self reliant in food production by exploiting its only available natural resources in terms of water and fertility of soil. However, he said that now when agriculture was no longer a profitable venture the farmers of the state must be encouraged to grow more remunerative and less water guzzling crops like maize by providing MSP on them.
The Chief Minister covered 45 villages in today’s Sangat Darshan held at Mauli, Mehta, Nangal Majha and Ranipur. Acceding to the demand made by the local residents Mr. Badal announced that the District Transport Officer (DTO) Kapurthala would sit in Phagwara for two days a week to facilitate the general public in getting their day-to-day work done. Likewise, he also asked the district administration to explore the feasibility of constructing multi-level parking in the city for easing the traffic in it.
The Chief Minister was accompanied by Chief Parliamentary Secretary Som Parkash, Chairman Markfed Mr. Jarnail Singh Wahid, Chairman Market Committee Phagwara Jathedar Sarwan Singh Kular, Deputy Inspector General of Police Kunwar Vijay Pratap, his Special Principal Secretary Dr S Karunaraju and Deputy Commissioner Mr. DS Mangat.
