IEP Chandigarh, December 29
Former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda has demanded a white paper from the BJP-JJP government regarding the rising debt on the state. He said the present government has drowned Haryana in debt of more than 4 lakh crores.
“The government has loans of Rs 3,25,000 crore and liabilities of Rs 1,22,000 crore. The situation has reached a point where the government is taking loans even to pay salaries to the employees. Due to this, there is a delay in getting salary to the employees many times,” he said.
Hooda said while the debt has been sky-rocketing, no new railway line, no metro line was laid, no big university and no big project was established in the state during the tenure of the present government. Despite this, the debt burden on the state is continuously increasing. The government has trapped Haryana in the debt trap.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, he gave details about the second phase of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in Haryana. “The second phase of the yatra in Haryana would start from January 5. “Rahul Gandhi will enter Haryana via Sanauli (Panipat) from UP. There will be a big public meeting in Panipat on January 6, in which thousands of people will participate. The yatra will reach Karnal on January 7 and Kurukshetra on January 8. 10th will be break day. After this, the yatra will enter Punjab from Ambala on 11th,” he said.
Hooda said the purpose of the yatra is not for political and getting votes, but to raise issues like unemployment and price rise. “Yatra is a public awareness campaign against the politics of division and making people fight in the name of caste and religion. This is the reason why the yatra is getting tremendous support from the people,” he stated.
Speaking on the 3-day assembly session, Hooda said the government was running away from its accountability throughout the session. “Many proposals were given for discussion by the Opposition, on which the government did not even allow discussion. Even the important issue like the case filed on the farmers during the agitation was not heard despite being on the table,” he said.
The former Chief Minister said the Congress demanded an increase in the price of sugarcane, but this too was rejected by the government. “The farmers of the state are demanding a rate of Rs 450 per quintal, but the government is not even ready to give the same rate as in Punjab.
“This season, the government did not increase the price of sugarcane even by a paisa, pushing the farmers into losses and distress. Due to the delay in fixing the rate by the government, the payment of the farmers has also stopped. The farmers are demanding that the rate of sugarcane should be Rs 450 per quintal, but the government is not even ready to rate at par with Punjab, he said.
Hooda said till 2005 the rate of sugarcane in the state was Rs.117. During the Congress tenure, it was increased by Rs 193 to Rs 310, a jump of almost 3 times, or 165 percent. “This amounts to an annual increase of about 18.3 percent. The BJP and the BJP-JJP government increased the rate of sugarcane by only 17 percent in 8 years, an annual increase of only 2.1 percent. The BJP-JJP government does not stand anywhere close to the Congress in providing a fair price to the farmers,” he said and added that the government is running away from discussion even on the issues of farmers, like shortage of fertilizers, water logging and compensation.
“The government is also misleading on the bond policy imposed on MBBS students. The government says that it has convinced the students. The truth, however, is that pressure was created on the students. Due to three conditions in the bond policy, the children of poor and middle class families in the state will not be able to study MBBS. The government should end this policy, because the purpose of education is not to earn profit,” he stated.
Speaking on Kaushal Rojgar Nigam, Hooda said the aim seems to be to eliminate permanent jobs, merit, reservation and recruitment bodies. Through the corporation, the government is playing with the future of educated and qualified youth. The youth are being exploited by making them do temporary jobs at low wages.
“The job of the government is to end the contract system and provide permanent jobs, but this government is promoting contract system by eliminating permanent jobs. Bypassing the merit process, the government has made the income of the family the basis for the recruitment of the corporation,” he said.
“The government has considered the family identity card as the basis for measuring income, but the truth is that the government has no way of determining a household’s income. There are so many flaws in PPP’s income that they can not be rectified. Everyday news of mess in the PPP is coming in newspapers. Family identity cards are being used to cut the pension of the elderly and the pension of 5 lakh people has been cut till now,” he said.
“Property ID is also a system implemented only and only to harass the public. There is a lot of confusion in this. Somewhere the landlord has been made the tenant and somewhere the tenant has been made the landlord. Mistakes have been found in more than 15 lakh out of total 42.7 lakh property IDs created by the government. People are now standing in queues in government offices to get the mistake done by the government, rectified,” he said.
Hooda reiterated that the BJP-JJP government has become just a portal government. “Portals created by the government do not work at all. We have no problem with the portal or digitalisation, but portals should be simplify governance, not to harass people and complicate the system,” he said.
Citing the example of ‘Meri Fasal, Mera Byora’, he said the portal did nothing but harass the farmers. “Most of the portals created by the government are often not working and the server is always down. That’s why even the work done in minutes remains stuck for many days,” he stated.
In response to a question on Punjabi language, Hooda said the Congress government had given Punjabi the status of second language in Haryana, but the recruitment of teachers of Punjabi and Urdu is not being done during the present government.
“The government is giving step motherly treatment to the Punjabis. Similarly, in the case of separate Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee of Haryana, the government’s attitude seems to be negative. During the Congress tenure, he had approved a separate committee for the state. The court also accepted this as correct, but the present government has not been able to complete it till now,” he said.
State Congress President Chaudhary Udaybhan was also present in the press conference.