Punjab Government’s Finance Minister and national spokesman of Congress Manpreet Singh Badal has said that minds could be hired or purchased, but those in Government need to have courage to take tough decisions.
Talking about the Punjab government, he said, “When we came to power in Punjab, the treasuries were completely empty. We abolished the truck unions that used to act as mafias in the State. It required a lot of courage to take decisions.”
He claimed that the governments function on policies and the Punjab government prepared policies in the directions of prosperity. “I believe the governments function on the lines of family budgets. There are two options- whether reduce the expenses or increase the income. We worked on both the directions and succeeded,” he said.
While talking to The Pioneer, Badal said that in the previous government, drugs sale was rampant in Punjab, but after the Congress government has come to power, it is on decline. “We had received this problem from the previous government, but we acted strongly against it and our efforts are yielding results. I assure you that soon, it would be controlled completely,” he added.
He claimed that terrorism was eradicated in Punjab only by the Congress.
Talking about his austerity measures, Badal informed that soon after he assumed office as Finance Minister, he ordered not to operate government offices in private buildings. This saved a lot of funds that the government was paying as rents. “In the first year, we reduced our losses from Rs 1800 crore to Rs 1500 crore,” he added.
Badal claimed that GST is a disaster. In past three years, there have been 1,000 amendments, which is ridiculous. He informed that during Congress regime in Centre, original draft was prepared by UPA and the tax slab in GST was around 12 to 16 per cent.