Former Haryana Cief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. (File Photo)
Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Wednesday demanded a white paper on the economic situation of the state, claiming that its debt had increased almost three-fold from Rs 61,000 crore in 2014 to Rs 1.81 crore now.
“Matters have reached a point where every child born in the state is born with a debt of Rs 72,000 on their head and the situation is getting worse,” said Hooda while speaking to the journalists here. He also sought details of the debt build-up and how the state government plans to get out of the debt trap.
The Congress claimed that “the state government is following the principle of Charvak, which propagates the idea of having a good time on borrowed money”. He said the BJP government has put the state under a mountain of debt but no major projects or institutions have been established.
Hooda further alleged that the BJP government is working on the mantra of “look busy-do nothing” as “it continues to be in speech mode, refusing to get into work mode, months after the election process ended”. He said the government is citing its speeches as its achievements. “The government claims it has shut down liquor vends in the state, but it is a re-packaged version of the old policy.” He said the government must change its policy and allow liquor vends in urban areas only after they are approved by the ward committees.
Hooda also said that farmers are facing an existential crisis as their crops were damaged by hailstorms a few days ago, but the damage has not been assessed and they have not yet been given compensation for crop loss. “Far from giving any relief, the government continues to raise input prices and continues to collect lakhs from farmers in the name of tubewell connections,” he claimed, adding that farmers had to pay Rs 10,000 for a tubewell connection under Congress rule but now have to pay Rs 2 lakh.
Calling the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal the lifeline of Haryana, Hooda alleged that the state government has been “twiddling its thumbs” over the issue as the Supreme Court has already made a decision on it but the Centre has done nothing to get Haryana its share of water. “We had appealed to the chief minister to seek time from the Prime Minister and the Opposition stands with them. It has been four years but the chief minister has been unable to get an appointment with the PM,” he added. He said while the BJP government was slow on work, scams were happening at the speed of a bullet train.
“The government has not even responded to our demands for a fair and transparent probe into these issues and this is clear by the manner in which the government is blocking a probe in the paddy and mining scams.”
Hooda said that the government is citing giving MLAs an area development fund of Rs 5 crore as an achievement, but the truth is that they have not yet provided the guidelines on how this money is going to be spent.
He said the money cannot be spent without these guidelines and as a result, elected MLAs have to face questions from their electorate. “It is now clear that neither does the government want to work, nor is it allowing elected MLAs to work,” alleged Hooda.