Amid mounting criticism from opposition over his five-day foreign tour at a time when the State is witnessing a rise in crime against women ranging from gang rapes to sexual harassment, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar lal Khattar on Friday hit back saying that it was not a sightseeing tour but a visit to attract investments for the State.
“If it was meant for sightseeing purposes, I would have spent 10-12 days abroad...The State level delegation led by me held a series of successful meetings in Singapore and Hong Kong and garnered an investment of Rs 18,000 crore for Haryana,” said the Chief Minister, while talking to mediapersons on Friday.
The Chief Minister had a day before returned to the country after his visit to Singapore and Hong Kong from May 21 to 25.
Targeted by the opposition for wasting public money on foreign tours, the Chief Minister claimed that five Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) which were signed during his visit to Hong Kong and the City State, would provide employment to about 10,000 youth in the State.
These MoUs pertain to setting up of townships, logistics parks, wellness projects, power transmission and distribution, affordable housing, green power generation, aviation hub, industrial infrastructure and smart cities in the state, he added.
The Chief Minister had led a 12-member delegation including Industries and Commerce Minister Vipul Goel to Singapore and Hong Kong. Apart from this, ten industrialists from the State had also accompanied the Chief Minister during his tour.
The opposition-Congress and INlD-had slammed the Chief Minister for the foreign visit amid the deteriorating law and order situation following gang-rape cases in Rohtak and Gurugram and a series of protests held by girl students suffering from eve-teasing and demanding their village school upgradation in various parts of the State.
lashing out at the BJP-led State Government, former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said the law-and-order situation in Haryana had worsened in the last two years. “People of the State, especially women, are feeling insecure. In this scenario, who will want to come here and investIJ, Hooda asked.
Manohar lal was also condemned by the opposition following a media report on him posing with wax figures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and actor Amitabh Bachchan at Madame Tussauds in Hong Kong during his foreign visit.
Reacting to the report, Khattar clarified that the sole aim of the foreign visit was to bring investment to the State.
“The State delegation had visited Madame Tussauds in Hong Kong and we want to replicate such tourist attractions in the State,” he added.
Giving details of his visit, the Chief Minister said a team of NEWater Authority, Singapore, would visit Haryana to explore the possibility of rejuvenation of 14,000 water bodies in the State.
He added that Pratt and Whitney would also explore possibilities in the field of aero-space, preferably in Hisar.
When asked about the status of MoUs signed during his visits to USA, Canada, Japan and China in the past two years, he said 14 MOUs were signed during these visits out of which nine were in advanced stages of implementation.
The Government has appointed one relationship manager each with companies with whom MOUs have been signed to facilitate them and work is also going on regarding the remaining five MoUs, said the Chief Minister.
Replying to a question related to investments made in the State so far, the Chief Minister said about 450 MoUs were signed during the Happening Haryana Global Investors Summit-2016 organised at Gurugram out of which in the case of 152 MoUs, either land or licence had already been taken.
The MoUs worth Rs 86,000 crore have materialised which would provide employment opportunities to 1.61 lakh youths, he added.
Khattar, who assumed power in October 2014, went for his first ten days tour abroad to the US and Canada in August 2015 and had claimed to have attracted investment of Rs 10,000 crore in the State and employment opportunities to be created for about 40,000 people.
Following his last year’s tour of Japan and China in January 2016, the Chief Minister had boasted of huge investment being promised by the Wanda company of China alone and that overall the investments would be much more and would provide employment to lakhs of youth.
However, the opposition has alleged while the State Government had made tall claims about attracting investments, only few foreign investors had come forward for setting up new ventures in Haryana.
Govt preparing two schemes to resolve problem of land availability
The Chief Minister said Haryana Government was working on two schemes to make available land for entrepreneurs to set up industries and to create more sources of income for the villages in the State. After identifying land for projects, the Government would approach the farmers with offer to purchase their land. The Government would soon post its requisitions on the online land purchase portal ‘e-Bhoomi’, he said.
Haryana to become first ODF State
Haryana is set to become the first completely Open Defecation Free State in the country. While the rural areas will be made Open Defecation Free (ODF) by June 23, 2017, the urban areas will get this status by September 25, said Khattar.
He said a team of World Bank experts met him during the day and offered to work towards ODF plus status. As many as 44 villages-- two villages each from a district---would be taken up under a pilot project where cleanliness would be ensured by November 1. In all, 6,132 gram panchayats have become ODF in the state while the remaining 200 to 300 panchayats would be made ODF by next month, said he.