Punjab Cong leaders meet PM, Sonia, seek industrial package

Punjab Congress leaders today met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party President Sonia Gandhi and pleaded the state's case for an industrial package .
Punjab Congress chief Pratap Singh Bajwa and CLP leader Sunil Jakhar also expressed gratitude to them for issuing the ordinance on food security that gave guarantee of food to 80 crore Indians.
Bajwa was accompanied by PPCC Vice Presidents Charanjit Singh Channi and Om Parkash Soni, MPs Mohinder Singh Kaypee, Ravneet Singh Bittu and Kuljit Singh Nagra, besides AICC secretary Ashwani Sekhri and other MLAs from the state.
The state Congress chief told Singh and Gandhi that the Food Security ordinance was a revolutionary step and it is a big leap towards achieving zero hunger status in India.

He told the Prime Minister that though the UPA government would spend Rs 1.25 lakh crore on food security, the SAD-BJP government in Punjab lacked preparedness to implement the programme, as the public distribution system in the state was faulty and state government had not updated the statistics on the number of beneficiaries.
Strongly pleading the case for a special industrial package to Punjab on the pattern of three hilly states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand and J&K, Bajwa said the same tax concessions must be extended to six border districts of Gurdaspur, Pathankot, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Ferozepur and Fazilka in Punjab.

He said these districts have suffered the most during terrorism and Indo-Pak wars and the entire border belt had remained neglected and lagged behind in development. He said this would help retain the existing industry which can relocate to the border belt instead of other states.

Bajwa also charged the SAD-BJP government in Punjab with failing to bring a comprehensive industrial policy, imposed heavy tax regime and is unable to meet the power demand of industry. The state government policies had devastated the existing industry which is relocating to other states, he said.
Bajwa took up with Singh the case of over 20 lakh ex- servicemen who are fighting for years to get 'one rank-one pension' scheme implemented.

The PPCC chief also demanded re-starting the direct flight of Air India between holy city of Amritsar and Toronto. He told Singh that thousands of NRIs of Punjabi origin were settled in North America and major chunk of them is based in Canada.
The MLAs who joined the Congress delegation included former minister Lal Singh, Charanjit Kaur Bajwa, Balbir Singh Sidhu, Karan Brar, Harchand Kaur, Guriqbal Kaur, Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Aruna Chaudhary, Jagmohan Singh Kang, Mohammed Sadiq, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Surinder Dawar, Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Parminder Pinki, Raja Waring, Rana Gurmeet Singh Sodhi and former minister Surinder Singla.