Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Tuesday categorically said that illegal mining of minor minerals in this region would be dealt with severely and none would be allowed to indulge in this unlawful practice.
Badal, addressing the media persons on the sidelines of his Sangat Darshan program in Ropar assembly segment, said that he had already directed the Ropar Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) to take stock of the situation and all out efforts should be made to put a stop to this unauthorized mining activity.
He said that severe of the severest punishment would be meted out to those unscrupulous elements, who were carrying out such illegal trade.
Mincing no words, Badal said that by and large, mining activity was being carried out in a lawful manner in the region barring few incidents of illegal mining, which would also be checked with heavy hand in future.
On the issue of clean chit given to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in 1984 riots matter, Badal said that everybody knew how the Congress leadership through its stalwarts in New Delhi perpetrated genocide in 1984 against innocent Sikhs by killing them brutally across the country just to teach them a harsh lesson.
He said that it was an open secret who was involved in this heinous and unpardonable act and thus any sort of clean chit given to these culprits would never wash their sins off because they would be ever answerable to the Almighty for the excesses committed on the Sikh community.
Reacting to the accusations made by the senior Congress leader Sunil Jakhar claiming Punjab government's misleading advertisements on central grants to the state, Badal out rightly said that Jakhar was beating around the bush just for the sake of cheap politics.
“Had the state have not sufficient funds, how we could have managed to give free power to the farmers worth Rs 5,000 crore annually besides launching several pro-farmer initiatives like free health insurance to provide free treatment to them up to Rs 50,000,” said Badal.
He said: “Moreover, the state government is disbursing development grants worth rupees several crores during the various Sangat Darshan programmes held across the state and if the state is cash strapped, then where this money is coming fromIJ”
Apart from this, the state government had already chalked out a massive program to provide the basic facilities of drinking water, sewerage, roads and street lighting and all the towns and cities of the state, which reflects that the state had sufficient funds to carry out their development programmes and welfare schemes.