Akalis to be blamed for SC verdict on extra power share to HP
Thursday, 29/09/2011
http://my.amarindersingh.in/akalis-to-be-blamed-for-sc-verdict-on-extra-power-share-to-hp
CHANDIGARH, September 28: Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee President Capt Amarinder Singh today said, the Akalis particularly the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who spearheaded the separate Punjabi Suba movement, were to be squarely blamed for the recent Supreme Court verdict giving extra power share to Himachal Pradesh.
Reacting to the SC judgment granting extra share of power to HP, Capt Amarinder pointed out, he has been consistently maintaining that the Akalis because of their narrow and sectarian vision had broken Punjab into pieces along religious lines and in the process surrendered huge resources like potential for hydroelectric power.
“Akalis wanted to make Punjab a Sikh majority state with the sole purpose to form the government in the state”, he said while adding, “but still they could never form the government of their own although they surrendered so much in the bargain to newly created states of HP and Haryana and the SC verdict is the outcome of that narrow vision”. He pointed out, had Punjab not been fragmented into small parts the state would be having huge hydroelectric power potential and it would never face power shortage.
Expressing grave concern over the power situation, which will further get deteriorated by the SC decision, the PCC President said, the state will now be pushed into further darkness. He pointed out, despite low electricity demand, the state government has introduced four days power cuts to industry and regular cuts to domestic consumers particularly when they had been claiming to make Punjab power surplus.
The former Chief Minister said, after HP gets extra share which will consequently mean less share to Punjab now onwards and the closure of the Unit IV of the Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Power Plant at Bathinda, there is going to be severe power crisis in the state. He asked the government to explain its failure or tell to the people what it intended to do to make up for the widening gap between the demand and supply of the power.
Capt Amarinder reminded the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal boasting in 2007 that Punjab would be power surplus within three years. “They have not even been able to maintain the existing generation, what to speak of improving it or making it surplus”, he pointed out.
