Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said on Monday that the central government had not sanctioned any funds for the construction work to start on the Indian side of the Kartarpur corridor.
"While Pakistan has already started work on the construction of the road on their side, development work had yet to start in the Indian Punjab as the state government had not got any funds from the Centre for acquiring land for building the infrastructure," he told the media.
The Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara is located around 4 km from Dera Baba Nanak town in Punjab's Gurdaspur district. Most of the work of the project has to be carried out inside Pakistan.
Referring to the controversy surrounding the visit of Punjab cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu to Pakistan in November, Amarinder Singh said he (Amarinder) had given the permission to SidhuAto visit Pakistan for their ground-breaking ceremony for the Kartarpur corridor.
"No Minister can leave without the Chief Minister's approval. Sidhu wanted to go there in his personal capacity and hence I had given permission to the Minister. However, I had advised him not to go, as I myself had turned down the invite in view of the unprovoked killings of Indian soldiers by Pakistan in Kashmir and ISI's persistent attempts to create trouble in Punjab," he pointed out.
Regarding the loan waiver scheme for farmers in Punjab, the Chief Minister said the government had already waived off crop loans worth Rs 3,417 crores of 414,275 farmers in just one year.
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"My government is committed to covering all the 10.25 lakh small and marginal farmers targeted in the farm loan waiver scheme announced by it, with others also to be covered in subsequent phases, as the fiscal situation of the state improves further," he added.
He said loans of the remaining about three lakh out of the 10.25 lakh farmers would be waived off shortly.
--IANS
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