Punjab Congress leaders on Monday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party president Sonia Gandhi and pleaded the State’s case for an industrial package.
Punjab Congress chief Pratap Singh Bajwa and ClP leader Sunil Jakhar also expressed gratitude to them for issuing the Ordinance on Food Security that gave guarantee of food to 80 crore Indians. Bajwa was accompanied by PPCC Vice Presidents Charanjit Singh Channi and Om Parkash Soni, MPs Mohinder Singh Kaypee, Ravneet Singh Bittu and Kuljit Singh Nagra, besides AICC secretary Ashwani Sekhri and other MlAs from the state.
The state Congress chief told Singh and Gandhi that the Food Security ordinance was a revolutionary step and it is a big leap towards achieving zero hunger status in India. He told the Prime Minister that though the UPA government would spend Rs 1.25 lakh crore on food security, the SAD-BJP government in Punjab lacked preparedness to implement the programme, as the public distribution system in the state was faulty and state government had not updated the statistics on the number of beneficiaries.
Strongly pleading the case for a special industrial package to Punjab on the pattern of three hilly states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand and J&K, Bajwa said the same tax concessions must be extended to six border districts of Gurdaspur, Pathankot, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Ferozepur and Fazilka in Punjab.
He said these districts have suffered the most during terrorism and Indo-Pak wars and the entire border belt had remained neglected and lagged behind in development. He said this would help retain the existing industry which can relocate to the border belt instead of other states.