Bajwa targets govt over investment summits
Friday, 18/07/2014
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CHANDIGARH: Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Partap Singh Bajwa on Thursday slammed the state government for “wasting public money on investment summits” that, he said, had failed to produce the desired results as no progress was made on the MOUs (memoranda of understanding) signed during such events.
Referring to the Progressive Punjab Agriculture Summit held in February in SAS Nagar district, Bajwa said none of the MoUs signed during the summit had materialised into any investment in the state.
“The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has only been exploiting farmers as a vote bank while ignoring their interests,” he said.
Citing replies of the departments of agriculture and horticulture and various government agencies related to the two sectors, Bajwa said the two departments had not received any proposal so far on the setting up of a special economic zone in the agriculture sector, as promised by the SAD in its manifesto for the 2012 assembly elections.
He said there were even no replies by some of the departments associated with the agriculture sector to queries posed to them regarding the MoUs signed during the agriculture summit.
The government had spent ₹ 34 lakh on the publicity of the summit, information received from the public relations department revealed, he said.
The RTI replies revealed that only nine MOUs were signed during the summit and those too were merely based on expressions of interest and talked only of proposed investment. The MoUs talk of proposed investment of ₹ 2,385 crore and a potential employment for 17,700 people.
Another RTI reply, sought from the Punjab Bureau of Investment Promotion regarding the physical progress of these MOUs stated that the government had nothing to say on this, Bajwa added. “The physical progress of these MoUs may be considered as nil,” stated the reply from the office of Punjab Agro Industries.
