‘Mohindra misleading people’

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 24

Union Food Processing Industry Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal today said it was tragic that Punjab Health Minister Brahm Mohindra was “deliberately lying and misleading the youth and the people of the Malwa region by stating that the AIIMS, Bathinda, existed only on paper” at a time when a four-storeyed structure of the medical college and hospital has already come up.

In a statement released here, Harsimrat said, “I am releasing a picture of the project site so that you (Mohindra) can see the progress achieved on ground.” She alleged that efforts are on to delay and derail the project with the Health Minister first feigning ignorance about communication, finalising the transit campus of the institute and now even questioning the very existence of the AIIMS, Bathinda.

The Bathinda MP said the Health Minister also apparently did not read the newspapers. “If he did, he would realize that I wrote several letters to Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to expedite work on the medical college and hospital project. First, the Congress government dragged its feet to shift irrigation channels and other infrastructure out of the project site. Then it refused to give the mandatory clearances. Now, it has delayed the setting up of the power grid which is needed urgently, as the OPD of AIIMS is slated to start by May this year,” she said.