Jalandhar: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal today condemned the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government for lying that it did not owe PSPCL any money when the truth was that the state power utility was owed Rs. 7,475 crore as per government records.
Asserting that PSPCL could be owed much more as the AAP government was a master at fudging financial figures, the SAD president said “the PSPCL website discloses that the utility is owed Rs.4870 crore in unpaid subsidy and Rs.2605 crore on account of unpaid bills of government departments. This clearly proves that finance minister Harpal Cheema has lied by claiming that the Punjab government does not owe any due to PSPCL.
Stressing that the AAP government had created a man-made financial and power crisis in Punjab, Sukhbir Badal said the State had borrowed Rs. 45,000 crore this year but had defaulted on paying dues to PSPCL. “It has also not done any capital investment by not taking up even one development project. It has wasted hundreds of crores on gimmicks like Aam Aadmi clinics and advertisements”.
Badal says dereliction of duty by chief Minister Bhagwant Mann would cost Punjabis dearly. “We are sitting on a time bomb. PSPCL has been bankrupted and does not have funds for routine repair works. Demand is overshooting supply even in winter. This trend could have devastating results as the entire paddy crop could be in danger in summer. So too will the industrial sector”.
Setting all this is happening because Bhagwant Mann was a puppet in the hands of AAP Convenor Arvind Kejriwal and had left governance of the state to MP Raghav Chadda, Badal said “this is also the reason behind the deteriorating law and order situation and drug menace in the State”.
During his tour to Adampur city, Badal inspected the Jalandhar-Hoshiarpur flyover where construction work is lying suspended since 2017. Interacting with the local people, he disclosed that the construction work was started in 2016 during SAD government but it came to a halt the very next year when the Congress took over the reins of the State. He assured people to raise the issue and force the government to complete the project.
During his day long tour of Jalandhar, Kartarpur and Adampur assembly constituencies,
Badal visited more than a dozen of families to share their sorrows and happiness. While urging the masses to elect SAD in the coming Lok Sabha and MC elections, Badal the SAD alone understood the pain and requirements of Punjabis and redressed them, as all others were outsiders and had no interest other than votes.