Captain: my stand on Bathinda refinery vindicated
Wednesday, 25/06/2014
http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
CHANDIGARH: Seeking to review the terms and conditions of setting up of the Bathinda oil refinery, the Congress deputy leader in the Lok Sabha and former Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Tuesday said his stand against giving undue concessions to the refinery jointly owned by the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited-Mittal Energy Limited (HPMEL) had been vindicated as the refinery had failed to provide any socioeconomic relief to anyone, especially in the Bathinda area.
Refer ring to the recent media reports about the refinery having failed to come up to the expectations raised a few years ago by the SAD-BJP government, especially chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, Amarinder said the state had already been made to suffer huge cumulative revenue losses of tens of hundreds of crores while the returns had practically been none.
The former chief minister said the setting up of such a huge project was expected to generate jobs and improve the economy. The concessions, he added, should have been in proportion to that.
“However, Badal for reasons best known to him went on to offer concession after concession, whether it was in terms of soft and interest-free loans or ` 2,000-crore VAT exemption for another 15 years, that too when the state was starving for funds,” he said, adding, “Badal even pleaded with then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for further concessions to the refinery.”
Amarinder said he welcomed investment into Punjab but not at the cost of its economy. “If you have to provide loans and undue concessions to the investor, then what is the point of investment,” he said.
