M A I N   N E W S

HP for out-of-court pact on BBMB
Tribune News Service

Shimla, April 30
The Chief Minister, Mr P.K. Dhumal, will meet the Chief Ministers of Punjab and Haryana to settle out of court the dispute regarding 7.19 per cent share of Himachal Pradesh in the BBMB projects so as to generate resources to overcome the current financial crisis in the state.

Mr Dhumal, who was talking to newsmen here today after meeting the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, in Delhi, lambasted the previous Congress government of Mr Virbhadra Singh for creating annual liabilities for Rs 1400 crore which has landed the government in a trouble and the Reserve Bank of India stopping encashment of government cheques.

He said short and long-term measures would be taken up to improve the financial health of the state.

Joint sector power projects would be set up with Punjab and Haryana if outstanding issues were settled among the three chief ministers. Himachal’s claim in the court is for the payment of arrears worth Rs 2100 crore from the BBMB.

The government would have to cut non-Plan expenditure and go in for resource mobilisation.

It was because of the failure of the previous Congress government to effectively present the state’s claim before the Ninth Finance Commission that Himachal Pradesh suffered a blow of Rs 1000 crore, he alleged.

He said that his government was meeting the annual financial liability of Rs 400 crore for payment of interest on loans of Rs 3318 crore raised during the Congress regime and Rs 500 crore each on salary and wages of 25,000 persons recruited by it and its failure to properly present the state’s case before the Fifth Pay Commission. There was no transparency in raising the short-term loan of Rs 258 crore in 1994-95 for which over Rs 31 crore was paid as interest and arrangers’ fee.

He alleged that the Congress government had been paying a higher rate of interest. For raising loans of Rs 3318 crore, the previous Congress government paid Rs 65 crore as arrangers’ fees whereas the present BJP government paid only Rs 5 crore for borrowing Rs 4600 crore.

The primary deficit of the state domestic product (SDP) was 7.68 per cent during the Congress regime in 1997-98. It had come down to 5.3 per cent in 2000-2001.

Mr Dhumal said that the top-heavy administration was being pruned to cut expenditure: five posts of IAS and IFS each have been reduced, 19 posts of IAS cadre will be reduced by taking only one officer of the cadre every year, 20 posts of the Himachal Administrative Service, seven of the Himachal Police Service and 16 of the State Forest Service had been cut and it has been decided that only 1 per cent posts falling vacant due to retirement would be filled.

A private financial institution, which arranged loans for the state government, was allowed to run an engineering college without proper infrastructure in an industrial shed and its certain courses had been de-recognised by the university.