lashing out at the Centre for discontinuing international flights from Amritsar’s Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday said that it was the height of step-motherly treatment by the Centre with the State.
“The decision to discontinue international flights from Amritsar airport and diverting them to Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport is nothing but Centre’s deliberate attempt to make the airport at national capital a profitable venture at the cost of Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport, Amritsar,” said Badal while talking to the media on the sidelines of the fifth day of his Sangat Darshan program at Dagru village in Moga.
He added that Amritsar airport had a tremendous potential for earning huge revenue as the holy city was the tourist hub due to Golden Temple where lakhs of devotees from across the world intend to visit this holy shrine to offer their prayers.
Chief Minister categorically said, “Amritsar International Airport is incurring heavy losses due to financial non-viability as the international flights to Toronto had been discontinued just because of Centre’s bad intention to extend profit to Delhi airport.”
“It is the height of step motherly treatment with the state as despite of being the most profitable international airport in the country, the Centre had earlier discontinued the flights from Amritsar to Toronto and now stopped even the national flights to Chandigarh,” said Badal adding that the sole aim behind all such gimmicks was to give severe blow to the economy of the state, which was not at all acceptable at any cost.
Daring Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) Chief Mr Partap Singh Bajwa to not to pass the buck of the center’s failure to Punjab, the Chief Minister categorically said that Punjab had been forced to levy property tax in the state in order to seek grants from center under Jawahar lal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) Reforms.
He said that rather than issuing the baseless statements the PPCC Chief must verify his facts.