Attacking the ruling Congress, senior BJP leader Suresh Bhardwaj on Thursday said that the present Government was being run by defeated, useless, tired, hired and retired officers as the deserving officers had either got shifted to centre on deputation or were fighting for their rights in administrative tribunal.
He said Government had been appointing Additional Chief Secretaries at regular intervals, but the seniority of the deserving bureaucrats was being ignored. Alleging government of putting unwarranted financial burden on the state exchequer, Bhardwaj said that the government had deputed 13 PCCF in the forest department only, while there were only two posts of PCCF sanctioned.
Bhardwaj accused the government of pushing the state in a debt trap while participating in the budget discussion. He said that the state would be under a debt of 45200 crore by March 31 this year and the government was making tall claims of development.
Scoffing at the duration of Chief Minister's budget speech, Bhardwaj said that CM took 4.30 hours to read 78 pages of his budget speech and some of his cabinet collegues had been napping while CM was reading his budget.
Pulling up the government on the need of setting up second state capital at Dharamshala, Bhardwaj said that the cabinet ministers like G S Bali and Kaul Singh Thakur were not aware of the decision, when Chief Minister made an announcement of creating second capital in the state.
Accusing government of overlooking the interests of Shimla, Bhardwaj said, "Just to please his favourite minister, Virbhadra Singh made it a point to get Dharamshala selected for the smart city project, while the prospects of Shimla were flawed." He said that the projects like Medical University, Super-speciality hospital etc were moved out of Shimla, just to ignore this city. He also condemned the government for shifting government offices from Shimla to Dharamshala.
Health Minister Kaul Singh Thakur took no time to retaliate the charges imposed by Bhardwaj and said that the decision to set up Medical University was completely in line with the policy of Congress government to carry out equal development in the entire state.
He said, the government decided to set up Medical University in Mandi, as the Mandi lok Sabha constituency is the only constituency that did not have a university till now. He said that the cabinet had unanimously decided to establish this facility at ESIC Medical College at Ner Choke, constructed with a cost of 850 crore.
Accusing BJP of creating divide in the state on the lines of regionalism, he said that the entire state would be benefitted with the Medical University and the other three parliamentary constituencies already have universities.
later, participating in the discussion, Vidya Stokes, the senior most leader in Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha, appreciated the budget for provisions in agriculture and horticulture sector specially. Making an appeal to the house, Stokes said all the legislators need to rise from the party lines and approach centre government collectively for getting more and more finances from the state as it was a question of the development of the state.