Congress demands CBI inquiry against BJP Minister Anil Joshi in PTU Scam

Thursday, 25/07/2013

http://www.punjabnewsline.com/punjab/congress-demands-cbi-inquiry-against-bjp-minister-anil-joshi-in-ptu-scam/83434

AMRITSAR: Punjab Pardesh Congress Committee (PPCC) coordinator for Majha Zone and Congress contestant from Amritsar North Karamjit Singh Rintu today said it has become a habit with the SAD-BJP government in state to ‘save' tainted ministers. He said if the trend continues under the leadership of Chief Minister of Punjab Parkash Singh Badal, he will end up in serious crises until and unless Badal starts acting upon the reports of the investigation agencies against his own ministers.

Talking about the Punjab Technical University (PTU) consultancy scam Rintu said that Anil Joshi must now follow former Union Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and must honestly resign as the scams and irregularities committed by him have been proved by vigilance bureau and report is pending on Badal’s desk for the last three months. As per the information received through RTI, Cabinet Minister for Industry, Technical Education and Mining Anil Joshi has been found guilty of scams, nepotism in each and every field.

Appointment of former Vice President of RSS Punjab Rajneesh Arora as the Vice Chancellor of Punjab Technical University by SAD-BJP junta had already alerted that Hindu fanatic class is trying to involve into Punjab politics. Later on Joshi handpicked a few firms; a majority of them newly incorporated just before allotment of the PTU contract for educational consultancy and were paid lakhs of rupees per month in spite of little experience in running distance education courses.

As per vigilance bureau report, PTU authorities had appointed several firms, reportedly owned by family members, relatives or friends of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) leaders, as consultants, coordinators and facilitators, on pick and choose basis and allegedly in violation of prescribed norms. A majority of these firms didn’t even own websites, a real need for running such courses.

A number of these firms did not even have a Permanent Account Number (PAN) of the Income Tax department, thus, lending credence to the allegations that such firms were formed allegedly to usurp public money under the cover provided by Joshi and his RSS lords. A Delhi based firm NetIIT owned by Praveen Kumar, a batch mate of the VC Rajneesh Arora, was appointed as consultant and was paid over Rs.17 crore as “consultancy” to improve the distance education programmes, offered by the university. Summing up the irregularities & embezzlement in technical education department accounts upto thousands of crores of rupees.

On the other hand Joshi is also the king of mining department where he gave open hand to sand black marketeers by banning the legal mining in Punjab but let his favourites to keep up the illegal mining throughout the state and damned the state treasury of revenue. Another neck bone for Joshi is that he being the minister for Industry proved to be a complete failure as the traders have declared to strike to get their rights. Most of the industry from his own contesting city has migrated or is on the verge of disaster.

Neighbouring states have taken the initiative to provide facilities to the incoming industries resulting which the entire industrial investments are going to them and Punjab is losing billions.  Rintu further said that SAD high command has got some real facts about Joshi’s being tainted; that is why Joshi is also mum upon the aristocratic policies of Badals and never acted as a representative of the urbanites or the industrialists.

Rintu demanded that Badal Sahib must resort to some different approach for dealing with BJP’s Joshi than he followed for SAD’s Ranike and Maluka. Badal Sahib on the name of diversification transferred an honest DGSE KS Pannu but hasn’t yet bothered about Maluka who has been behind the of book scam. Therefore the satisfactory solution to the problem must be a probe by central investigation agencies in Joshi’s matter and his dishonourable discharge from the office if he himself
doesn’t resign.