Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa on Saturday flayed the Akali Dal-BJP alliance Government in the State for non-utilisation of Central grants which, he said, debunked the charge of discrimination levelled repeatedly by the State Government against the then Congress-led UPA Government.
He referred to the non-utilisation of `322.16 crore released by the Centre last year under the post-matric scholarship scheme for students from the minority communities. That was the period when the UPA was in power. The Badal Government did not use even a single paisa from these funds.
Bajwa called upon Badal to explain this disinterest of his Government in disbursing these funds to the needy students for whom these were meant. He said it was not that the funds were not used as it also pointed towards the attitude of the Government towards education. Here was the Government which talked of Adarsh Schools but failed to utilise even funds for scholarships.
He added that `61.22 crore Central funds under Integrated Child Development Scheme released last year remained unutilised as the State Government was supposed to contribute matching grant.
In the wake of non-utilisation, the State Government failed to get funds under this head from the Centre. Yet another allocation was amounting to `205.86 crore released last year under the e-governance project. The grant lapsed.
Then there was the case of `382.95 crore released under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana which again had been lying unused while the rural link roads were in bad shape, virtually non-existent in village after village.