Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh/Hoshiarpur, People’s Party of Punjab chief Manpreet Singh Badal today appreciated candid admission by Agriculture Minister Tota Singh about bankruptcy of the state government and asserted this had in the process contradicted the stand taken by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal all along that all was well.
In a statement, Manpreet referred to the minister’s interaction with a delegation of teachers from various categories at Faridkot yesterday who have not been paid salaries for the last four months. Tota Singh is reported to have told them, “The state government is bankrupt as there is no money in the treasury. The government is in deep crisis. The situation has further been complicated by the problems being faced in paddy procurement”.
The PPP chief said this has been the state of affairs over the years from which, as the finance minister, he had tried to take this state out. During the last several years, it was for the first time that a member of the Parkash Singh Badal had exhibited guts to speak the truth about the financial position. The situation had become so critical due to mishandling and mismanagement that the government was in no position to pay even salaries to its employees.
Manpreet said ironically, both the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister had repeatedly been saying that there was nothing basically wrong with the state finances and churning out misleading figures. They had now been publicly contradicted by Tota Singh who had portrayed real situation before the teachers.
He recalled the statements made by Badal during the campaign to the Lok Sabha elections that the formation of the BJP government at the centre with Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister was the remedy to all the ills of Punjab. However, the Modi government had now understood the real situation in this state arising out of the gross mismanagement of the economy and lopsided policies which had resulted in this mess. It was not without reason that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had refused to come to the aid of the Badal government by rejecting the demand for a special package, he added.
