Ecstatic over the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report’s findings that Punjab is among top three investment destinations in India, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Thursday said that the State could make it despite “adverse central policies like concessions to neighbouring States”.
Asking the State Congress leader to go through the report, Badal said that the RBI report which puts Punjab among three best investment destinations during 2012-13 should serve as an “eye opener to the Congress leaders who are never tired of painting a negative picture of their own State”.
Punjab finished ahead of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar, and West Bengal, to be one of the three most attractive investment destinations in the country, according to the figures released by the RBI. “Congress should realise that Punjab has done it despite deliberate adverse and ruinous policies of the Congress-led Central Government against Punjab, such as denial of concessions granted to our neighbouring States and the refusal to provide freight equalisation,” he added.
For the same, Badal gave credit to “perfect” law and order situation, an atmosphere of peace and communal harmony, ideal labour relations, top-grade infrastructure, “improved power scenario”, and an investment friendly industrial policy.“The Congress leaders see nothing of this and are busy trying to portray Punjab as the worst state in the country. They should now try and contradict the RBI report if they can,” said the Chief Minister.
Blaming state Congress leaders for “running down their own state and its achievements”, Badal said that they were out to defame their own state as a part of a well-planned agenda to stop investments from coming here. Punjab finished among the three best investment friendly destinations this year, with just two per cent of the country’s total area and 1.5 percent of its total population, Punjab accounted for nearly 13 percent of the total investments made in the country during the period, says the RBI report.
The Chief Minister said that Punjab's performance was all the more creditable when one considers that India on the whole slipped badly on the investment sector.