SADBJP govt failed to upgrade fire services in state, says Sidhu

Local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday alleged that the previous AkaliBJP government blatantly ignored disaster management system in the state.

Making reference to the recent fire incidents in Ludhiana, the minister said there were glaring irregularities in use of grants from the Central to update fire services in the state. Under 13th finance commission, ₹629.13 crore was allotted to the urban areas of the state for disaster management which comprised a performance grant of ₹217.78 crore. Of this, ₹90.91 crore was to be spent on fire extinguishing mechanism, the minister said. “Of the ₹90.91 crore, the finance department had released ₹45 crore but the previous government utilised only ₹17.03 crore and the rest lapsed. Even the utilisation certificates were not produced,” claimed Sidhu.

“As the grants were not utilised in right manner, the state was pushed into red zone while other states availed the grants. The previous government purchased only small vehicles with ₹17.03 crore rather than big fire tenders,” he said. “With central government’s grant and share of state, ₹4.60 crore was to be spent under a scheme for modernisation of fire services in the state during 2009-13. However, the state finance department released only ₹60 lakh for fire services. The utilisation certificates of ₹60 lakh were not submitted to the Centre due to which the SADBJP government had failed to get ₹4 crore”, said Sidhu. HTC