Taking on the Akalis for their “baseless” allegations on the achievements of Congress-led Punjab Government, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Tuesday described the charges as a sign of desperation and frustration in view of pathetic performance of previous SAD-BJP Government.

Citing facts and numbers to trash the Akali charges, the Chief Minister dared them to list a single count on which their Government had delivered to the people during their decade-long rule. “All they did is destroying every vestige of development that our Government has achieved in my previous term,” said Capt Amarinder, lashing out at the Akalis for misleading the people with “blatant lies” and “baseless claims”. In sharp contrast to the Akalis, and their allies (BJP), who failed to deliver on a single promise in 10 years of their “misrule”, the Congress Government had not only implemented the majority of promises made in party manifesto but had successfully pulled the State back from the brink of collapse to which it had been pushed by the previous regime, said the Chief Minister. Trashing SAD’s claims and charges as a bunch of lies and fabrications, clearly aimed at hiding their own failures, Capt Amarinder said that not only had his Government executed the central schemes effectively but had also launched several path-breaking initiatives to pave the way for Punjab’s development, that had plummeted to shockingly abysmal levels under the previous Government. “While SAD had been responsible for transforming Punjab into a narcotics den, our Government has set up a Special Task Force, which had force most drug traffickers to leave the state, with 27,744 NDPS cases registered and 33,622 persons arrested, besides large seizures of drugs,” he said adding that so far, 87,000 drug addicts had also been treated at 178 OPD clinics. He said that the Government’s flagship programme ‘Ghar Ghar Rozgar’ had witnessed the creation of nine lakh jobs or self-employment opportunities (at the rate of 1034 per day).

Despite severe fiscal crisis, the Government had waived off Rs 4,700 crore of farm debt, while 9.28 lakh people had benefitted from various welfare schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi Sarbat Vikas Yojana. “The people of Punjab could see the change on the ground and no amount of fabrications by the Akalis would negate that,” said Capt Amarinder, adding that the recent Lok Sabha elections had shown that the people were not ready to be taken in by the rantings of a group of politicians who cared nothing for the State or its welfare. “Cognizant of the importance of education to a society’s progress, 4261 smart schools had already been made operational, with 12,921 pre-primary classes started in Government schools to make education accessible to all.

English Medium had been introduced in as many as 6000 Government schools,” said the Chief Minister, pointing out that various initiatives of the last two years had led to a remarkable improvement in the performance of Government schools, which were lying in a shambles under the SAD-BJP rule. The Chief Minister said that the people of Punjab have not forgotten how industries had fled the State under the previous Government and listed out steps taken by his Government to attract investment and industries through Rs five per unit (for five years) industrial tariff freeze and annual average of Rs 1,146 crore in industrial power subsidy. “This had led to actual on-ground investment of Rs 50,000 crore in 30 months, against which previous Government had realised a mere Rs 31,323 crore in 10 years,” he said.