Leaders rejected by SAD-BJP targeting Badals: Harsimrat
The Union food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal laid the foundation stone, of state’s first maize based Sukhjit Mega Food Park and Infra Limited at Rehana Jattan village, Friday.
The food park to be set up on 55 acres, at the cost of ₹123 crore, will grind 500 metric tonnes maize per day using latest processing facilities.
Harsimrat Badal said, “The unit will give a push to maize cultivation in Doaba region and lead to increased income for farmers.”
“The Union government is providing a financial assistance of ₹50 crore for the project,” she said.
Harsimrat said that she had approached Union water resources minister Uma Bharti to give permission for the food park, after Kapurthala was declared a dark zone due to declining water level.
“I convinced her that the plant will lead to much-needed diversification in Punjab”, she said.
She claimed that the Union government approved three mega food parks, in Fazilka and Ludhiana.
The park will have facilities like multiple cold storage, deep freezer, warehouse, silos (to store grain), steam generation,for sorting and grading yard and food testing laboratory.
She said the park will have three primary procurement centres at SBS Nagar, Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar with primary processing and storage facilities.
Reacting to the Congress government’s move of scrapping permits of Badal buses, Harsimrat said, “The government is doing bad politics. Leaders who were rejected by SAD-BJP party are now targeting Badals deliberately.”
Lashing on state finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal and former BJP leader Navjot Singh Sindhu, she said, “One has been rejected by Akalis and one was ignored by the BJP.”
The recent transport policy of the state government is a proof of it, she said. Earlier, cabinet minister Rana Gurjit Singh also addressed the function.
He claimed that the Congress government took the initiative in 2007 to take this project from the central government, but now others will try to take the credit.
However, later Phagwara MLA Som Parkash lashed out on Rana. Parkash said, “Some people are in habit of taking credit for everything even if do nothing. The Congress government failed to do anything in their previous rule and now too they are fooling people.”