Badal hits out at Amarinder's 'Halke Vich Captain' programme

In a dig at Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh's outreach programme 'Halke Vich Captain', Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today claimed there is no match between "darbars of Maharajas" and "pro-people Sangat Darshan" of SAD-BJP government.
The "politically motivated darbars" of Congress leaders reflect their "feudal mindset" whereas the Sangat Darshans are unique phenomena where the entire government visits villages for solving people's problems, he claimed at a Sangat Darshan programme in Malout Assembly segment.
"Congress leaders with aristocratic mindset are free to hold darbars, provided they are of some utility to general public. It is on record that Sangat Darshan programme is very fruitful in redressing the grievances of the every strata of the society," Badal said.

Ahead of the Assembly polls next year, Amarinder, who belongs to the royal family of the erstwhile State of Patiala, has announced the launch of 24-week-long outreach programme -'Halke Vich Captain'- which will kick off on June 19 from Jalalabad, the assembly constituency of Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal.
In this programme, Amarinder will spend one full day in each of Punjab's 117 Halkas (assembly constituencies) reaching out to more than two crore people and establishing direct contact with more than five lakh people.
The chief minister claimed, "Sangat Darshans guarantee holistic development of villages and welfare of people and enable the government to judge the performance of its officers. This is first of its kind programme in the entire country as no other CM bothers to take up so much pain."

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On another query, Chief Minister Badal said that he had already ordered cash grant for the war widows.
Refuting the charges of misappropriation of funds for procurement being leveled by the Congress party, the Chief Minister claimed the entire procurement operations was being conducted in a transparent manner, so there was hardly any scope of misappropriation.
Badal said that had there been any misappropriation then the cash-credit limit would not have been issued by the Central Government.
On another query, the Chief Minister said that he would soon raise the issue of inflow of "contaminated water" through river Ghagghar in the state from Haryana.

He said that the supply of toxic water was a major concern for the region as it was creating several health hazards for the residents.
Badal said that he had taken up this issue earlier in several meetings and would again flag up this issue with Haryana government.
Replying to another query, the Chief Minister said that only the Union government was authorized to waive off the loans of farmers towards the banks adding that the state government has hardly any role in it.
Likewise, Badal said that he had been regularly pleading for making all out efforts to make agriculture a profitable venture.

He said all the powers regarding fixing the prices of crop and agriculture inputs were vested with the Central government.
Badal said that on its part the state government was providing free power worth Rs 5000 crore annually to the farmers besides ensuring health insurance and an interest free crop loan worth Rs 50,000 to them.