Notwithstanding the "huge investments" which captains of the industry have promised for the State, opposition Congress today claimed that Akali-BJP government was lying about investments in Punjab and said these are not attracted by merely organising a "corporate ramp walk".
Congress' Deputy Leader in Lok Sabha Amarinder Singh today dared Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to prove him wrong on the investment figures. Amarinder Singh said that the actual investment in the state during last fiscal "was Rs 2,600 crore and not Rs 40,000 as claimed by them."
The former chief minister asked the state government to specify where exactly the amount of Rs 40,000 crore was invested during last one year after the previous investment summit, where it claimed that MOUs to the tune of Rs 65,000 crore of investment had been signed.
"You (government) do not attract investments by merely organising a corporate ramp walk... For that you need to build up the confidence of the investors which you have badly failed to do", he said in a statement issued here today.
Amarinder Singh said that he was quoting the figures released by ASSOCHAM a few months ago, and pointed out that the rate of investment in the state had declined 91 per cent since 2006-07 when Congress lost power in the state after 2007 Assembly polls.
The Amritsar MP disclosed that while Rs 36,000 crore had been invested in that year, which comes to over Rs 50,000 crore now after adjusting the inflation, the investment had come down to Rs 2,600 crore now.
