Hitting out at the opposition Aam Aadmi Party, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday trashed the party's Delhi model of development and claimed that his government has performed better on all fronts, including education and power sector.
His remarks came amid repeated attacks by the AAP, which rules Delhi, on the Congress-led state government on various fronts during the ongoing Budget session of Punjab Assembly.
On Tuesday, AAP MLAs held a protest outside the assembly here, alleging that the government was sleeping and had failed to fulfil its poll promises like providing jobs to unemployed youths.
Winding up the debate on the motion of thanks to the governor's address in the House, Singh said his government is providing cheaper power to the industry in comparison to the Delhi government.
"Somebody here raised the issue of power. In Delhi, there is free power for the domestic sector. But they (AAP) did not talk about the power rates for the commercial sector," the chief minister said.
"They (Delhi government) charge Rs 10 per unit whereas we charge Rs 7 per unit. Industry tariff in Punjab is Rs 5 per unit, while it is Rs 9 per unit in Delhi," he added.
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Singh said his government is providing a power subsidy of over Rs 12,000 crore this year, with around Rs 9,000 crore for agriculture sector, Rs 1,500 crore for industry and Rs 1,900 crore for domestic consumers.
However, in Delhi, the subsidy burden is just Rs 3,200 crore, he claimed.
On the issue of higher electricity tariff for domestic consumers, the chief minister informed the House that he has asked the power department to explore every possible option to make it comparable, if not less, with the neighbouring states.
The government will soon come out with a comprehensive policy on this, he added.
Responding to the criticism over power purchase agreements (PPA) signed with private power plants during the previous SAD-BJP regime, Singh said he will try to bring out a white paper on the PPAs in the Budget session.
The chief minister also claimed that the performance of government schools in Punjab is better than those in Delhi.
Citing last year's Class X results, he said the pass percentage of Delhi government schools was 72 per cent as against 88 per cent in Punjab.
He added that a new policy for upgrading schools in the state will be announced soon and a new state level law university will be set up in Tarn Taran district.
Countering the opposition's claim that the government had failed to address the issue of unemployment, Singh said 1,714 placement camps have been organised under the 'Ghar Ghar Rozgar' scheme so far.
Through these camps, 57,905 youths secured government jobs, 3,96,775 got jobs in the private sector and 7,61,289 became self-employed, he said.
Following an uproar by AAP leaders, Singh said he has data to prove the numbers and will share it with the Speaker.