Punjab Congress legislature Party leader Charanjit Singh Channi on Thursday questioned the claims on development front made by Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal saying the daily suicides by the farmers and farm workers mocked at him.
Reacting to Wednesday's presentation by the Deputy Chief Minister on various aspects of the State’s economy, Channi pointed out he had unashamedly overlooked the grim grassroot’s reality. He asserted development must be accompanied by improvement in quality of life of the common people for whom life had turned only harder and harder.
The leader of Opposition in Punjab said the suicides by the farmers in the state were the second highest in the country but he did not mention this aspect.
He called upon Sukhbir Badal to spell out what was his government doing to take Punjab out of this ever deepening crisis just in the agrarian but also in the industrial sector.
He referred to the precarious financial position saying contrary to the claims, GMADA was raising loans to pay interest on earlier loan.
The State Government has admitted in the Punjab and Haryana High Court that the total debt burden was likely to go up to Rs 1,24, 471 crore by the end of this financial year. He ridiculed him saying in case the economy had been strong, where was the need for industrialists to seek intervention of the high court to get pending interest subsidy released as the total amount was just a double digit figure. Channi said Sukhbir Badal did not come out with the unemployment rate and as the state had staggering of unemployed that was one of the reasons for the youth turning to drugs about which he took refuge in the denial mode.