PHAGWARA: Senior Congress leader and MLA from Bholath, Sukhpal Singh Khaira, today strongly condemned the Bhagwant Mann led Aam Aadmi Party government for what he termed an unprecedented and shocking loot of Punjab’s resources through a scandalous road maintenance project cleared by the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA).
Referring to a detailed newspaper report published in The Tribune, Khaira pointed out that GMADA has invited bids to hand over the maintenance, resurfacing and beautification of 83 kilometres of Mohali roads to private players for a period of 10 years, at a staggering cost of ₹10 crore per kilometre, pushing the total project cost to nearly ₹1, 000 crore.
“This is the first time in Punjab’s history that routine road maintenance is being outsourced at such obscene and unjustifiable rates. Charging ₹10 crore per kilometre for maintaining existing roads is nothing short of daylight robbery, ” Khaira said.
Khaira alleged that the tender conditions have been deliberately tailor made to suit one particular company from Delhi, at the behest of AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, while completely excluding 383 experienced road contractors from Punjab, who have been left in the lurch.
“This tender reeks of favoritism, nepotism and political patronage. Punjab’s money is being siphoned off to outside companies, while local contractors and businesses are deliberately sidelined, ” he asserted.
The Congress MLA further questioned the very premise of the project, stating that Mohali roads are not in any such dilapidated condition that warrants a decade long private concession involving thousands of crores of public money.