Mr.Navjot Singh Sidhu
Ending his self-imposed exile, Congress MLA
from Amritsar East Navjot Singh Sidhu addressed NRIs on Sunday night as part of
a ‘Speak Up India’ campaign started by the Congress.
The event in which Sidhu spoke was a web
broadcast organised by the Indian Overseas Conference.
He said Punjab had slipped from being a revenue surplus
state to being neckdeep in debt and also referred to his report on generating
revenue from mining while he was a minister. “You cannot afford to be
apolitical in such a scenario,” said Sidhu. “Between 2007 and 2017, the debt of
the state shot up manifold. Those at the helm mortgaged the state for personal
gains. (I) don’t think that the debt has no bearing on people of the state. The
funds being used to pay back the loans would have been used for development,
education and health.”
“Why are funds not being spent on schools and
hospitals? The total revenue receipts of this year was Rs 88,000 crore and of
that Rs 47,000 crore has to be repaid as loans with Rs 19,000 crore on account
of interest. To add to the problem, we were hit by coronavirus. Now revenue
receipts have been calculated to be Rs 62,000 crore. Where will we go? How can
we think of development? People who are the cause of this, why will they find
solutions to this?” he said.
“In 2019-20, Punjab’s revenue from VAT, taxes etc was Rs 33,000 crore and a state like Tamil Nadu earns Rs 32,000 crore from excise revenue alone… I made a report on sand mining after going to Talengana. The state is earning Rs 43 crore in 10 days. The Akali government earned Rs 42 crore in one year. Where is the money going? The Badals had two buses but now they had 2,000, but the PRTC is under debt,” he said.
He also referred to cable mafia and Justice
Kuldeep Singh’s report on land under alleged illegal occupation in his address.
“The land should be vacated and then the NRIs can be involved,” he said.
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