In meeting of state finance ministers with Nirmala Sitharaman, Manpreet Badal vociferously pleads Punjab’s case

Ruchika M Khanna

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 16

Punjab needs to be considered as a security case and not as an economic case by the Centre, when it decides on pushing growth and investment in states.

This was the contention made by Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal before the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during a meeting held between chief ministers and/or finance ministers of all states with the Centre on Monday evening.

During the meeting that ended late in the night, Badal pleaded Punjab’s case vociferously, arguing that Punjab’s geography should not define its future, nor should the events of 1947, 1962, 1965, 1971 and “the decade-long period of terrorism, sponsored by our friends from across the border. Punjab has suffered because of the incentives given to the neighbouring hill states since 2000 and has not been able to keep the growth pace with other states located next to the sea,” he contended, arguing that the Centre immediately allot three major projects for the state – a farmers’ park, a textile park and a food park – to help the small and medium enterprises here jump on the growth bandwagon.

The state finance minister also sought the Centre’s help to switch from the expensive thermal-based power generation to either solar power or gas-based power generation. “We are farthest from the coal mines, which makes thermal power generation very expensive for us. We want to retire our coal-fired stations so that power becomes cheap and we become a viable investment destination,” he said.

Stating that agriculture and Punjab are synonymous and the Centre, in its budget, should come up with schemes like production-linked incentives given to industry for agriculture, so that the state’s farmers can diversify to other cash crops and animal husbandry. “This will help in water conservation and also control stubble-burning. It will help us overcome challenges we face in transiting to new-age agriculture,” he said.

Badal said though Punjab had a good rail infrastructure, there are certain missing links – 30-km link stretch between Patti and Makhu (this is a strategic link for defence as it will connect Jammu, Amritsar, Rajasthan all the way to Gujarat); link of 20 km from Rajpura to Mohali to connect our state capital Chandigarh to Rajasthan and Gujarat, besides a 28-km stretch between Beas and Qadian. “We hope that you will consider this demand in your budget,” he said.

He also demanded that the Institute of Virology, proposed to be set up in Punjab, be expedited and the state allowed to offer its citizen-centric services to their doorstep through Bharat Net platform.