Himachal Industries Minister Bikram Singh and Forest Minister Govind Singh Thakur on Tuesday denounced the statement of former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh in which he has alleged that the financial mess of the State was inherited from the previous BJP regime (1998-2003).
In a joint statement issued here, the two Ministers said that the poor financial management, unplanned and wasteful expenditure by the previous Congress Government have resulted in unmindful borrowings. They said that this has burdened the State with a loan of over `46,500 crore. "Instead of accepting their mistakes, the Congress leader was playing blame-game and blaming the previous BJP Government for financial mess of the State," the statement said.
Singh and Thakur said that it was the previous Congress Government which had pushed the State into financial mess. They said that the Congress Government during its tenure appointed over 45 people as Chairman and Vice-chairman of various Boards and Corporations. They said that everyone close to the then Chief Minister was rewarded with plum posts of Chairman and Vice-chairman, which resulted into wasteful and unnecessary expenditure of crores of Rupees annually. "Not only this, the previous Congress Government made various announcements at the fag-end of its tenure without any financial provisions," they added.
The two ministers said that with an eye on the Vidhan Sabha elections, the previous Congress Government announced unemployment allowance to the youths of the State. They said that out of lakhs of unemployed youth in the State, only a few thousands were provided this much hyped allowance.
They said that the former Chief Minister created Himachal Pradesh Kaushal Vikas Nigam just to adjust his son as its Chairman. They said that the over `500 crore Skill Development Allowance Scheme was not implemented effectively in the State, as only 1.5 lakh youth were trained during the last five years against the target of 5 lakh youths.
In their statement, thw two ministers advised the former Chief Minister to refrain from giving such misleading and false statements, as that was not going to cut much ice. "People of the State has given massive mandate to the BJP in the State and completed rejected the non-functional and corrupt Congress Government," they added.