E-Paper
Punjab Bachao Yatra: Sukhbir bats for special package for border districts
Sukhbir was leading Punjab Bachao Yatra that witnessed big gatherings at Patti and Khemkaran assembly segments of Tarn Taran district
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday called for giving a special package for border districts to ensure their all-round development, even as he castigated the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government for “failing” to provide quality education and health facilities in the border belt.
He was leading Punjab Bachao Yatra that witnessed big gatherings at Patti and Khemkaran assembly segments of Tarn Taran district.
Accompanied by former minister Adesh Partap Singh Kairon and senior Akali leader Virsa Singh Valtoha in their respective segments, Badal said, “The SAD will strive to secure a special package for the border belt, including incentives to establish industrial units, besides pumping in money to augment infrastructure as well as provide technical institutions to skill the youth.”
Badal alleged, “The AAP government has ignored the border belt completely. A large number of people approached the SAD to complain how border schools were sans teachers and how dispensaries existed only on paper. They also complained that establishment of Aam Aadmi Clinics had emptied rural dispensaries due to which they were facing great difficulties.”
The SAD president said it was even more condemnable that the AAP legislators in the border belt were busy in illegal mining and extending patronage to drug smugglers rather than indulging in any public welfare activity.
He claimed that the SAD stood for providing world-class facilities in education, health and sports in the border belt and will come out with a border areas development plan once it assumed power in the state.
