Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh on Saturday lashed out at the Badal family for allegedly grabbing two more private transport companies in the State, based out of Hoshiarpur, and acquiring the entire fleet of their 120 buses.
“I doubt whether there are anymore transport companies left in Punjab which do not belong to the Badals”, he remarked.
He said, while the acquisitions are being shown to be normal business deals, but the matter of the fact is that the Badals created a situation where the transport operators had no option but to sell off their business.
“They have been doing it since the day they assumed power in 2007 and that is how their transport fleet increased 17 folds from mere 30 then, to over 500 now”, he said, while pointing out, how Punjab roads are now mainly flooded with the buses belonging to Dabwali Transport Company or the Orbit Transport Company, both owned by the Badal family.
“In a clear case of conflict of interest, that betrays their unbridled greed, the Badal family has completely acquired two Hoshiarpur based transport companies; Azad Hoshiarpur Express Bus Service and Rajdhani Transport Company Private limited a few days ago”, Capt Amarinder said in a statement.
He added, the government enhanced the bus fare by 6 paise per kilometer immediately after acquiring the additional fleet of about 120 buses. He said that with this acquisition the total number of buses in the Badals’ fleet has gone to about 500 from a mere 30 buses in 2007.
Capt Amarinder announced that given the monopoly the Badal family has established in the
transport sector, by brutal abuse of power, the Congress government will ensure that this monopoly is broken and the business is equitably distributed.
The former Chief Minister said that he has been continuously maintaining that the Badal family’s interest, of both Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his Deputy Chief Minister son Sukhbir Badal, was not in the development of the state but their own promotion. “That is how their fortune has crossed billons of rupees, while Punjab has gone bankrupt”, he remarked.