Took Rs 30K cr loan, Congress govt has landed state on verge of bankruptcy, says Anurag
Former Union Minister and Hamirpur MP Anurag Thakur toady alleged that the Congress government had pushed the state on the verge of bankruptcy due to financial mismanagement.
Anurag, while addressing mediapersons here, said that the present government had taken about Rs 30,000 crore as loan in the past one-and-a-half years, which was about 50 per cent of the loans that all previous governments had taken in the past 60 years.”The state government has levied various taxes on people. The Congress government has increased the prices of petrol and diesel, imposed a cess on power, increased water bills and the prices of commodities sold in PDS shops but it is still unable to pay salaries and pension to its employees on time,” he added.
Anurag said that Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had been alleging that the Union Government was not giving adequate grants to the state. However, the fact was that a Rs 140 crore grant given by the Central Government for disaster management had lapsed. “The Union Government has given a record number of 12,000 houses to the poor under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. The fact is that the state government has not utilised central grants,” he alleged.
He said that the Chief Minister had said that the financial condition of Himachal was precarious due to the policies of the previous BJP government, which had opened many institutions. “This is the most baseless allegation. If a government does not open new institutions like schools and hospitals, what business it has to be in power,” he added.
The former Union Minister said that on the one side, the poor people of the state and employees were being deprived of even small financial benefits, on the other, the Chief Minister was providing hefty salaries to his friends and crores of rupees were being spent on the renovation of the offices and houses of ministers in Shimla. “If the Congress government is not in a position to run the state, it should step down and let an alternative government take over,” he added.
Anurag was here to preside over a function for the BJP membership drive. He said that only 4,500 new members joined the BJP today. “The BJP has kept a target of enrolling 16 lakh members in Himachal. It has emerged as the biggest political party in the world under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the campaign started just 10 days ago, about four crore new members have joined the BJP,” he claimed.
Anurag blamed the Congress government for the delay in the construction of the campus of the Central University of Himachal Pradesh (CUHP) at Jadrangal in the Dharamsala Assembly constituency.
The Hamirpur MP said that the state government was not depositing money for the transfer of land at Jadrangal in the name of the university, delaying the construction of the campus. “The Union Government has already sanctioned Rs 500 crore for the CUHP and out of which Rs 250 crore is to be spent on the Dharamsala campus,” he added.
