One year of Capt Amarinder govt: On infrastructure route, it’s either first gear or reverse

The big-ticket promise of renegotiating power purchase agreements with private thermal plants in Rajpura, Mansa and Goindwal Sahib has been dropped, as the government realised that would lead to litigation.

One of the many standouts in the poll manifesto of the Congress last year was a push to the infrastructure sector. After coming to power though, it’s been harping on projects kicked off by the previous SAD-BJP government, with its own plans either not taking off or being dumped altogether.

Congress government says it has conceptualised turning Kharar-Ludhiana road into an express highway. But there is no deadline set even as work on improving these roads has been on since the time when SAD-BJP was in power. (HT Photo)

Showing off projects such as the Zirakpur-Bathinda and Jalandhar-Nakodar roads’ widening, which is nearing completion, the government now says it has conceptualised turning the Rupnagar-Phagwara and Kharar-Ludhiana roads into express highways. But there is no deadline set. In the budget for the current financial year (2017-18), there was no allocation of funds for it either.

Secretary, public works department, Hussan Lal said that, for the forthcoming financial year, there is a proposal for spend Rs 2,270 crore on state and district roads. “Of this, Rs 900 crore will come from Punjab Mandi Board, Rs 1,100 crore from state funds, and Rs 270 crore will be taken from Nabard,” he explained.

The big-ticket promise of renegotiating power purchase agreements with private thermal plants in Rajpura, Mansa and Goindwal Sahib has been dropped, as the government realised that would lead to litigation. Actually, now it is depending more on these plants for its claim of providing cheap power than on the state-owned plants located in Lehragaga, Rupnagar and Bathinda. The government has anyway taken a decision to shut the Bathinda thermal plant, even going against a promise made by finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal during his poll campaign for the Bathinda Urban assembly seat.

“Power subsidy is 10% of the total cost of foodgrains (wheat and paddy) produced by Punjab’s farmers. That is a huge amount for peasantry which is under stress, so we don’t want to burden them by taking away the free power supply,” clarified the finance minister.

Another big-ticket promise of regularising all illegal colonies is heading nowhere so far. A committee has met thrice but local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu has objected to its treating illegal colonies on a par with legal colonies that have paid all charges to the government. There are 9,000 illegal colonies in the jurisdiction of the housing (4,500) and local bodies departments (3,500).