Comes down heavily on illegal mining, says AAP govt patronizing it
Holds AAP govt resp for tardy progress of the PGI Satellite Centre
Ferozepur: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal today asked chief minister Bhagwant Mann to stop false propaganda and paid news campaigns and take effective steps to end ‘goonda raj’ in Punjab.
Talking to Media persons at Zira where he had gone to attend a court hearing and later here after addressing a District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee (Disha) meeting, the SAD President said “the very fact that gangsters are openly threatening the State Police chief and the police administration is indicative of the failure of the Home Ministry in giving requisite orders to deal with them with a heavy hand. Never before were gangsters so emboldened so as to make such open threats”. He said the deteriorating law and order situation, which had led to a sharp increase in extortions, was also resulting in flight of capital from the State.
Mr Sukhbir Badal also came down heavily on illegal mining which he said was taking place across the State. He said the illegal mining was being patronized by the AAP government and that this scam was similar to the Rs 500 crore excise scam. “The State exchequer is being looted of hundreds of crores by AAP functionaries who are in league with the mining mafia”.
Asserting that the AAP government had allocated a budget of Rs 700 crore to fill newspapers and media houses with its own propaganda, Mr Badal said “never before were State funds misused as is being done now”. He said the AAP government was purchasing entire newspaper pages to run paid news.
At the DISHA meeting, Mr Badal asked the Deputy Commissioner to hold an inquiry into the misuse of MNREGA funds by Congress legislators and their cronies. He said Congressmen had established their own factories to manufacture interlocking tiles and got the government to purchase sub-standard tiles at high rates from the factories.
Mr Badal also castigated the AAP government for failing to expedite work on the PGI Satellite Centre here, saying the issue was not even taken up with the central government since the last five months. Asserting that the Congress government had earlier wasted five years, Mr Badal asked the Deputy Commissioner to prepare a status report so that he could take up the matter appropriately at the centre.
When queried, the SAD President highlighted how the AAP government’s callousness towards the agriculture sector was creating an agri-crisis in the State. He said earlier chief minister Bhagwant Singh Mann deceived farmers by asking them to sow Moong and did not purchase the crop as promised. “Now we are seeing how more than Rs 300 crore in cattle wealth has been wiped out in Punjab due to the inaction of the AAP government in dealing with Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD)”. He demanded farmers be compensated at the rate of Rs 50,000 per milch animal immediately to offset their losses.
Those present included Janmeja Singh Sekhon, Joginder Singh Jindu and Vardev Singh Mann.
