Bajwa: Badal govt burdening people with power tariff hike
Monday, 22/04/2013
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130422/punjab.htm#7
Amritsar : Lashing out at the SAD-BJP Government for the hike in power tariff, the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president, Partap Singh Bajwa, today said the ruling alliance had failed to keep its promise to the electorate to make Punjab a power surplus state.
He was here to attend a district-level dharna at the Circuit House Chowk organised by the district president of the youth wing, Vikas Soni. Bajwa said the power rate hike was the first blow inflicted on the people of the state after the SAD-BJP Government's Chintan Sammelan in Goa.
Comparing Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal with “Mungeri Lal” (the main character of a TV serial telecast some years ago), Bajwa said the “47 promises” comprising the SAD-BJP manifesto were nothing but “white lies” and the state had fallen to the 12th slot in terms of growth and economy.
Bajwa said it was a stark reality that power projects had been delayed and over 80 per cent hike in power rates during the SAD-BJP regime had forced industry to flee. “The high power tariff has sounded the death knell of industry, which has shifted its base to Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.”
He said the Badal government had been fooling people by claiming to present a "tax-free" Budget and later burdening them with Rs 1,800 crore in the shape of hike in power tariff.
“Their manifesto in 2007 had promised to turn Punjab into a power surplus state by 2010. Badal Junior had even boasted of exporting power to Pakistan. The high power tariff has spelled ruin for the small-scale industry. The knitwear industry of Ludhiana has decided to shift its base to Himachal Pradesh owing to the unbearable power tariff,” Bajwa claimed. He said an emergency meeting of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee, to be attended by all party MLAs, former MLAs, district presidents and senior party leaders, at Chandigarh tomorrow would decide the future course of action to counter the “arbitrary demarcation of wards, clandestine notification for Block Samiti and Zila Parishad elections and other related issues.”
He alleged the SAD was trying to grab the panchayats by illegal means. He asked the 2,816 unanimously elected panchayats in Punjab to declare whether they had been given Rs 3 lakh promised to them by the SAD during the previous elections.
Legislator OP Soni said the SAD-BJP alliance had in its 2012 election manifesto claimed it would increase the Shagun Scheme amount from Rs 15,000 to Rs 31,000. Far from it, it had not been able to disburse even the original amount. Similarly, no pension was being paid to the elderly and widows.
“The government has stopped supplies under its Atta-Dal Scheme for those living below the poverty line,” Soni said. Punjab Youth Congress president Vikramjit Singh Chaudhary said besides the power tariff hike, issues like property tax, poor law and order and and gravel scam would be raised in days to come.
“We have started our protest from Amritsar and we will intensify it by launching a rigorous campaign against the SAD-BJP Government in other districts too," he said.
