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State handed over to land mafia: Badal

Staff Correspondent

`Not a single penny being invested in the State by the so-called mega-project giants'

CHANDIGARH: This week's decisions of the Empowered Committee on Industries, which met under the chairmanship of Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and approved 20 new "mega projects'' with a proposed investment of about Rs. 7,700 crores, have become a centre of major controversy.

While the Government has claimed that the project would generate jobs for nearly 52,000 people besides creating a large scale indirect employment avenues, the opposition has charged that the State has been handed over to the land mafia.

Apart from granting approval to a home textile project and a steel manufacturing unit with an investment of Rs 900 crores and Rs. 210 crores respectively, the Committee gave the green signal to a multiplex, a shopping mall and a hotel on the Chandigarh-Zirakpur-Shimla Road involving an investment of Rs. 129 crores and multiplex with shopping malls at Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Mohali at a cost of Rs. 176.32 crores. It also approved five projects of setting up residential townships in Jalandhar, Ropar and Bathinda districts with an investment of about Rs. 4400 crores.

According to the State Government, the Committee has so far approved 80 projects, which are estimated to attract a total investment of about Rs. 24,700 crores. These projects in the districts of Ludhiana, Amritsar, Ropar, Patiala, Hoshiarpur, Ferozepur, Mandi Gobindgarh, Fatehgarh Sahib, Bathinda, Jalandhar and Sangrur were under various stages of implementation.

On the other hand, the opposition Shiromani Akali Dal president, Parkash Singh Badal has alleged that Capt. Singh had handed over the State to the land mafia in exchange of illegal money. He said that if his party returned to power, all the projects would be reviewed and those found indulging in exploitation of the people through defiance of norms and rules would be scrapped.

Through a statement, Mr. Badal described the Chief Minister's claims as an "outrageous lie'' alleging that the big land mafia, that used to operate in Mumbai sometime back, had been injected into the State in exchange for its commitment to finance the Congress election campaign "Not a single penny was being invested in the State by the so-called mega-project giants,'' he alleged.

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State handed over to land mafia: Badal

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