Jalandhar, Aug 5: Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee President Capt Amarinder Singh today identified education, healthcare, agriculture and industry as top priority agendas for the next Congress government in the state. Besides, he called for strong and powerful measures for revenue generation that will help the state to come out of the debt trap. He also expressed grave concern over the rising drug addiction in the state.
Speaking at the Meet the Press programme organised by the Punjab Press Club, Jallandhar, on the subject, ‘Punjab of my Dreams’, Capt Amarinder said, although it was too early for him to spell out his agenda at this stage, but he said, primary and secondary education and primary and secondary healthcare for the common people will be the top priority of the new government.
The PCC President said, the state of primary education was miserable. He said, there was no proper infrastructure and there were not many teachers available for the government schools. He asked, “when we cannot lay good foundations at the primary level how can we expect our youth to compete at the university level”. He pointed out, most of children, particularly in the rural areas were dependent on the government schools and for that the standard of education needed to be improved.
Similarly, he added, the state of healthcare was very bad. He emphasised the need for improving the government healthcare while maintaining that it was not possible for all the people to afford private medical care. “We have to improve infrastructure so that people who cannot afford private hospitals also get good medical facilities”, he said.
Punjab, the former Chief Minister said, needs to generate its own resources. “We cannot survive on debts for a long time”, he pointed out while revealing that the total debt of Punjab is likely to cross 1.7 lakh crores by the end of the term of this government. He flayed the Akali-BJP government for not taking any measures and instead taking more debts. He said, he had to write to the Reserve Bank of India and other banks not to provide anymore loan to Punjab as the state did not have the repaying capacity. “They are just borrowing as much as they can and put off liabilities for our government which we will not allow”, he asserted.
Capt Amarinder pointed out, Punjab’s economy was primarily agrarian and agriculture will continue to be its backbone. However, he added, the traditional agriculture was not going to sustain the economy. He called for introduction of high value cash crops which will enhance the income of the farmers. He said, the way he had introduced BT cotton in Punjab during his tenure, it had changed the economy of Southern Punjab as not only had the production increased from 7 lakh bales a year to 30 lakh bales but the number of pesticide sprays needed had come down from 20 to 2 or 3.
He said, industry was equally important for the progress of Punjab. He said, it serves double purpose as besides generating revenue by way of taxes, it also generates employment. However, he added, “for that we need to create an investment friendly atmosphere as also providing good infrastructure”.
Today, he said, industry was leaving Punjab as it was not getting the right kind of atmosphere and right kind of infrastructure. Particularly they were facing lot of power shortage. He said, against a demand of 9900 MWs of power Punjab has 6300 MWs only. He said, the ongoing power projects four of which had been conceived and approved during his government will take some time and by the time they become operational the demand may have further gone up.
Earlier welcoming Capt Amarinder, Satnam Manak on behalf of Press Club thanked him for providing the office and building to the Press Club and making it a reality. He said, it was a long pending demand of the journalists in the city.
The Press Club also honoured Mr BIS Chahal acknowledging his contribution in helping to set up the club in Jallandhar.
Prominent among those present on the occasion included PCC general secretary Arvind Khanna, vice president Chaudhary Jagjit former ministers Avtar Henry, Chaudhary Santokh, DCC president Arun Walia, Tejinder Bittu, Gautam Kapur and others.
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