Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh, People’s Party of Punjab chief Manpreet Singh Badal today said the hollow slogan of the Parkash Singh Badal government of taking the state to a higher orbit of development stood exposed with its failure to release its committed contribution for the on-going works in the villages adopted by the NRIs.
He referred to the announcement in this context made by former Federal Minister of Canada Herb Dhaliwal and his associate Dr Gurdev Singh Gill who had been working under the banner of Indo-Canadian Friendship Society and Indo Canadian Village Improvement Trust to carry out development works in a number of villages to snap ties with the Punjab government due to bureaucratic harassment along with non-release of committed contribution by it.
He referred to the pioneering work undertaken by them with village Kharoudi in Hoshiarpur district as the model which was visited by then President APJ Abdul Kalam in 2003.
“It is disgusting to know that that the development works in some of the villages under this project are stuck midway in due to paucity of funds as the Punjab government had failed to release its contribution. Another issue raised by them is the bureaucratic hurdles and red tape leading to unnecessary harassment. The situation did not improve even after they brought the matter to the notice of the Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal. The non-cooperative attitude of the government has forced them to take this extreme step of working independently without involving the state government”, he added.
Manpreet said this project had been started to provide basic facilities in the selected villages under which the NRI trusts and the state government were to contribute. Now it was the state government that had been dragging its feet exposing as to how serious Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal was about his development slogan.
He asserted the criticism by Dhaliwal and Dr Gill of the functioning of the state government and its total apathy towards development issues was in itself a severe indictment that also exposed the mind-set and non-seriousness of the rulers.
