Former Punjab Chief Minister and Congress candidate from Amritsar Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday said that there is a need for confidence building measures with Pakistan for the success of Amritsar as an important trade centre, not only for India, but for the entire Central and West Asia.
He also called for a comprehensive national drug policy to fight the scourge of drugs that is eating into the vitals of the young generation in Punjab.
Addressing a function organised by the Rotary Club Amritsar here, Capt Amarinder pointed out Amritsar had been a flourishing trade centre prior to the partition. He said it was essential that there were friendly relations between Pakistan and India as only then can trade routes open.
He said if it happens, the trade routes will open right up to Central and West Asia and will not be confined to Pakistan alone.
The former Chief Minister cautioned that both the countries need to be careful as past experience has shown that whenever there was any attempt at confidence building measures, some serious act of terror took place and the entire process got derailed.
"While we need to tackle such incidents with an iron fist, at the same time we must not let peace between the two countries become casualty and whenever that happens we, the people of Punjab and particularly those living in border areas like Amritsar get the worst affected", he said.
While hoping that the Congress-led UPA Government will come to power at the centre once, he cautioned against the jingoistic rhetoric from the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi saying, his approach was not at all towards peace as it looked like war mongering.
"And that would be the worst thing to happen for the people of Amritsar as any possibility of the trade route opening up will be finished", he warned.
Answering various questions from the members of the Rotary Club, particularly related to the menace of drugs, he called for a National Drug Policy, and said, there were three prime factors involved. One was the smuggling of drugs like opium from Afghanistan through Pakistan, the second was flow of drugs from states like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where certain drugs can be traded after government licence and the third and the dangerous one was the synthetic homemade drugs in Punjab manufactured with the patronage of the ruling family.
He said firm laws need to be enacted and there must be exemplary punishment like continuous imprisonment for 25 years at least, for drug trafficking. Sharing the grave concern of the members, he said, "I understand an entire generation is being ruined and we can't sit as silent spectators."
Referring to a question on the non-availability of sand in Punjab, Capt Amarinder said, he had already announced that when Congress government is formed in 2017 it will deregulate the sand mining.
"We will ensure that the sand which belongs to people is used by them only and the government has nothing to do with it", he remarked.
Capt Amarinder also referred to other major problems including the closure of the industry, availability of drinking water and rising unemployment. He said, these were long pending problems and will need top priority and need to be solved with urgency.
The function was presided over by the Amritsar district Governor of the Rotary Club, GS Sekhon and attended among others by S.S. Batra, Rajesh Arora, Rakesh Kapoor, Ravi Pathania and Pankaj Kapoor.
