Deputy CM misleading industrial houses: Bajwa
Tuesday, 08/10/2013
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20131007/punjab.htm#3
Amritsar : Partap Singh Bajwa, PPCC president, claimed today that Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal was making fake projections on investment opportunities in Punjab and offering a “lollipop” to industrial houses in the name of “investor-friendly” industrial policy that was announced in June but was yet to be notified.
Addressing a meeting of Congress workers during the second phase of the party’s mass contact programme here, Bajwa said Sukhbir was doing no service to Punjab by lying to industrial houses and was rather earning a bad name for the state.
He said the Deputy CM’s presentation to IT companies in Bangalore last week was “misleading and far from the ground reality”. He claimed that Punjab had already missed the
IT revolution.
“Seven years have passed since the formation of the SAD-BJP Government but no industrial policy has been notified so far. States like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have taken a lead in IT revolution,” he said.
Bajwa said two companies had come to Punjab during the previous Congress government. While one had closed down operations, the other was planning to do so.
On the state government’s claims on engagement with the Tata Group, Bajwa said: “After meeting Tata Group head Cyrus Mistry, the Deputy CM unilaterally announced that the company would invest in Punjab.The Tata Group has only come to say ‘tata’ to Punjab.”
He said Sukhbir had made a similar claim in July after a meeting with Tata Motors vice-chairman Ravi Kant and even named projects. “No industry can come up in Punjab without accepting the untenable demands of the ruling family,” Bajwa alleged.
He said the Global Investment Summit proposed to be held in Mohali would be yet another futile exercise. The SAD-BJP government had held two NRI sammelans in the past, but not one NRI had invested in Punjab because of corruption, poor law and order and unworthy roads.
Bajwa alleged that illegal colonies in Punjab had been raised by Akali and BJP leaders during the past seven years. “ Now the people are being made to pay for regularising these.” He asked the people not to pay any charges to get their colonies regularised.
OP Soni, PPCC vice-president, and Fatehjung Singh Bajwa, general secretary, were among those present on the occasion.
On the government's proposal to rope in film stars as Punjab's ambassadors, Bajwa said there was no dearth of people in the state who had earned a name for themselves in their respective fields. He declined comment on former Union minister Ashwani Kumar 'cold-shouldering' Congress leaders at a function in Gurdaspur on Saturday.
