Can’t let people suffer for govt misuse of SDRF
FEROZEPUR: Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring today said that Punjab right now needs urgent relief from the centre and it must provide that without any ifs and buts.
Interacting with reporters during his tour of the flood hit areas here today, Warring said, yes the Punjab government has misused the State Disaster Relief Fund worth about Rs 13, 000 crores which should be probed, but people cannot be made to suffer because of that.
He said, these are two separate things. “Right now we cannot tell the flood hit people that your government has misused the funds so we cannot provide you anything”, he remarked, while reiterating his appeal to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide at least Rs 25, 000 crore flood relief package to the state.
The PCC president said that people of Punjab are being sandwiched between the “incompetence of the state government” and the “indifference of the central government”. “If the state has misused the SDRF money, what is the fault of the common people that they are being punished and denied relief when they need it the most?” he asked.
He expressed apprehensions that the AAP government may have diverted the SDRF money towards massive advertisement expenditure or the flights of the state chopper to different parts of the country.
Warring also clarified that it was not the Modi government alone that had provided the money for SDRF to Punjab. He said, every central government provides it to all the state governments so that they are ready in case of any calamity.
But the AAP government in Punjab unfortunately misused it and diverted it for other expenses and when people needed it most the state had no money to pay them, he said, adding, for this the state government must be held accountable.
Warring was accompanied by former MLA Kulbir Zira and others.