Leader of Opposition in Haryana Assembly Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Thursday, blamed the ruling BJP-JJP government of pushing the State to the brink of economic crisis with rising debt, and demanded a `white paper’ surrounding the spending of money.
“The State has a debt of ₹3,24,448 crore owing to the wrong economic policies of the government. Before 2014, the State’s debt ratio was 16% of GSDP, which has increased to 27.8% now. State liabilities have also increased by 3.13 times. During the entire tenure of previous BJP and current BJP-JJP government, no major project was implemented in Haryana,” he said at a press conference here.
“The development of the State has stopped due to the unsafe environment as no one is ready to invest here, leading to unemployment, breaking all the records in the State. Investment is the most important thing to strengthen the economy, but investment will come in the State only when there is law and order in the State. Fearing criminals, investors are turning to other states instead of Haryana. People of the State are feeling unsafe. Neither the public is safe here nor the public representatives. Even MLAs are getting ransom and death threats,” he said.
Opposition’s response
Responding to a question regarding construction of a separate Assembly building in Chandigarh, the former Haryana Chief Minister said the coalition government is trying to weaken the State’s claim on Chandigarh. “The government has agreed to pay ₹550 crore to the Centre for 10 acres of land in its own State capital. Whereas Haryana has full rights over Chandigarh in the ratio of 60-40. If the Assembly building is falling short, then the building should be expanded along with the existing Assembly and a separate building is not needed,” he stated.
Punjab and Haryana State Assembly complexes are housed in a single building in Chandigarh.
Mr. Hooda said Chandigarh is spread over 28,000 acres and the share of Haryana comes to 12,000 acres. “Considering the rate at which the Haryana government is taking 10 acres of land, Haryana’s share comes to ₹6 lakh crore. Haryana can move to its own capital if we get this ₹6 lakh crore, Hindi-speaking area and its share of water,” he said.
Mr. Hooda said that after making repeated demands, the State government has now decided to constitute a Backward Classes Commission, but there is no mention of the provision of caste census in it. “It is necessary to have a caste census so that the exact demography is known, but the government is not ready to accept this demand. The government is continuously issuing decrees against Dalits and backward classes. The purpose of reducing the limit of creamy layer from ₹8 to ₹6 lakh is to deprive the backward classes of reservation,” he said.
