Punjab govt fulfilled 90% poll promises, says CM Amarinder Singh

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday said his government has fulfilled 90 per cent of the promises made before the 2017 assembly elections.

His statement comes amid a demand from several dissident party leaders, including four ministers, seeking his replacement over "unfulfilled poll promises".

Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu and some other leaders have been pressing Amarinder Singh to take action on an 18-point programme given by the Congress high command.

This programme includes action in sacrilege and subsequent police firing incidents, arrest of the "big fish" behind drug rackets and scrapping of power purchase agreements signed with private companies.

Talking to the media on Tuesday evening, the chief minister said about 90 per cent of the poll promises had been fulfilled.

We had made 547 promises in the manifesto. Out of which, 422 have already been fully implemented which is 89-90 per cent, 52 are nearing implementation and work is going on 59, he said.

Fourteen promises are difficult to fulfil as these were related to VAT which has been replaced by the GST regime, he added.

To a question on power purchase agreements, Singh said if he cancels all the 122 PPAs, then from where he would get power.

Do you know how many PPAs there are? 122. And if I go and do away with all of them in one go then I will be sitting in the Supreme Court forever. And where do I get power from, he asked.

Punjab has 14,000 MW of power requirement, he said.

Sidhu has been demanding scrapping of faulty PPAs in order to provide power to people at cheaper rates.

Last month, the chief minster had ordered power utility PSPCL to cancel or revisit all the one-sided PPAs signed with private firms, which were not contractually obligated to supply power to meet the peak demand during the paddy sowing and summer season.

To a question on one-day assembly session, Singh said it was a "special session" for the commemoration of the 400th 'Parkash Purb' of Guru Tegh Bahadur on September 3.

The House will be adjourned but not sine die. Then after a week or ten days we will meet again, he said.

Asked about the recovery of weapons and tiffin bombs, Singh said in all these years, he has never seen so many weapons come in and asserted that they will be used by sleeper cells of Khalistanis for recruitment.

"The sleeper cells that exist of Khalstanis, they do not have that type of recruitment which can utilise so many weapons. They are hoping to recruit and we do not know from where the recruits will come, he said.

Stressing that the arms and ammunition were coming in through drones, he said: What we do not catch is the problem.

The chief minister said his government was working closely with the central agencies.

On the drug issue, he said narcotics were coming from Srinagar, Nepal and other places. He said that 46,000 people were in jail for being involved in drug-related activities.