AAP govt has gone back on all guarantees made to the people of Punjab in its last budget : SAD

AAP govt has gone back on all guarantees made to the people of Punjab in its last budget : SAD

(N K Sharma says even women defrauded and would actually get an allowance of Rs 150 per month as the AAP govt would give allowance for a few months only)

(Says govt had gone back on its promise to give Rs 3,000 per month to youth and had announced nothing for farmers, poor, govt employees or the trade and industry)

Chandigarh 8 March ( Raanjeet Singh Dhaliwal ) : The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government had gone back on all its guarantees by going back on all the promises made to farmers, women, youth, poor, government employees and trade and industry and doing nothing for them even in its last budget. Addressing a press conference here, senior SAD leader and Trade and Industry wing Chairman N K Sharma said “it is a black day for democracy when the Vidhan Sabha is turned into an AAP rally and lies and deceit rule its proceedings”.

Stating that the AAP government had deceived everyone, Mr Sharma said even women were defrauded and would actually get Rs150 per month if one was to calculate the start day of the scheme from four years back”. He said riders put on the scheme accompanied by low budgeting meant women would not benefit. “If the government was serious about helping women it should have allocated Rs 60,000 crore for the scheme instead of allocating only Rs 9,300 crore for giving this allowance for a few months”. Asserting that the youth had been backstabbed after being promised an unemployment allowance of Rs 3,000 per month, Sharma said “the AAP government has apparently forgotten this promise completely and not allocated even Rs 1 for this scheme”.

Speaking about the lies spoken by finance minister Harpal Cheema, the SAD leader said the finance minister had lied in the Vidhan Sabha that speedy compensation had been awarded to farmers for losses sustained by them in the devastating floods last year. “Forget giving any compensation, even the Rs 12,500 crore due to them under the disaster management head had been forgotten”. He also cited the cruel joke played on farmers by allocating Rs 15 crore for crop diversification even though they had been promised MSP on 22 crops.

Giving details of the health insurance scheme of the AAP government, Mr Sharma said this had also been truncated. “Only Rs 2,000 crore has been kept for this scheme even though the money needed to provide medical insurance of Rs 10 lakh is Rs 10,000 crore”. He also chided the government for not keeping any funds for the seven new medical courses it claims will come up this year and allocating Rs 300 crore for painting and signage in government schools.

Sharma said the budget did not have one word to say about government employees with no funds being kept for either the revival of the Old Pension Scheme or paying 16 per cent Dearness Allowance to employees or raising their scales. He said similarly the trade and industry had been ignored with no incentive being announced for them even though they were victims of tax terrorism due to repeated GST raids and penalties. The SAD leader also condemned the AAP government for taking an average loan of Rs 33,000 crore per year and taking the State debt to Rs 4.17 lakh crore. He said this was likely to go up to Rs 4.70 lakh crore in another one year. “The AAP government has bankrupted the State but is openly lying that it had reduced debt by 35 per cent”, Sharma added.