Taking a dig at Badal, Capt Amarinder says CM believes all urban problems will be solved by putting red beacons on mayors’ vehicles

CHANDIGARH, January 17: Taking a dig at the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal over authorising the city mayors across Punjab to use red beacons atop their vehicles, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Capt Amarinder Singh today said that he (the Chief Minister) probably believed that this will solve all the urban problems in Punjab.

“More than the red beacons atop their vehicles the mayors need money for their municipal corporations and councils so that they can carry out some development work which is standstill for last nine years”, Capt Amarinder said in a statement here today, while regretting that the helpless mayors also seemed to be happy over the lollypop offered to them by Mr Badal.

The former Chief Minister said, Punjab’s cities were crying for development and the Municipal Corporations and Councils were starving for funds. He said, except for the token announcement that Principal Secretary Finance has been asked to transfer Rs 422 crores to the local bodies “at the earliest”, the state government seems to have neither any intent nor any money to offer to the local bodies for the development of the urban areas.

The PCC president maintained that Mr Badal, who is into his tenth year of Chief Ministership now, has always survived on tokenism and false assurances without any intention to fulfil the commitments and announcements he makes. “And at the fag-end of his tenure he tries to appease the mayors by allowing them red beacon atop their vehicles, which most of them were already using anyway”, he pointed out.

Capt Amarinder said, the urban areas have suffered as much as the rural areas for the lack of development during the last nine years. The roads, lanes and by-lanes in the cities have not be repaired and re-carpeted for years, the water supply pipes are leaking and the sewers are choking, he said, while adding, besides, there has been no recruitment of the safai-karamcharis for several years and most parts of the cities are the scene of filth and sleaze all over Punjab.