Govt encouraging youth to take up menial jobs abroad: Captain

CHANDIGARH: Amritsar MP Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday slammed the SAD-BJP government for laying emphasis on encouraging youth to go abroad and that too for menial jobs like those of drivers and construction workers.

He said the move spoke volumes about the government’s ability and confidence in generating jobs, which the promised investment should have created in Punjab.

“You don’t need to announce that you are training construction labourers for Saudi Arabia at an investors’ meet. It simply betrays your weakness and lack of confidence,” he said.

“When the rest of the country is exporting trained scientists, doctors, engineers and IT (information technology) professionals to countries like the United States, Akalis have reduced Punjab to the level of exporting labourers and drivers for menial jobs in Saudi Arabia, and they seem to be taking pride in it,” Amarinder said.

He also questioned the Progressive Punjab Investment Summit, terming it as a “misplaced hype created by the government over the promised investments”.

In a statement, Amarinder wanted to know the status of the earlier commitments besides incentives to the existing industry.

He said, “Let the government give details of the `65,000 crore investment commitments made during the previous summit, most of which remain unfulfilled.”

He said offering incentives to attract fresh industry was fine but what about the existing one, especially in small and medium sector that was suffocating. SUKHBIR TRYING TO BEFOOL PEOPLE: BAJWA

Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa accused deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal of trying to befool people by making them believe in the industrial mirage of the state.

Bajwa said more than 20,000 industrial units had closed down during the present Akali-BJP regime in the state. In a statement here, Bajwa asked Sukhbir to tell people about the outcome of the previous progressive, agriculture and NRI (nonresident Indian) summits and the investment that had come to the state.

“Sukhbir lives in a makebelieve world and his only commitment is to self. While thousands of industrial units in Punjab have closed down, only the Badal family has prospered,” Bajwa said, asserting that such events were “just the platforms for the Badals to expand their businesses”.

Bajwa said the event was a dream the state government had shown to the corporate honchos while its own existing small and medium industries were on the verge of collapse. JAKHAR WANTS INCENTIVES FOR COTTON INDUSTRY

Congress Legislature Party leader Sunil Jakhar welcomed the offer of electricity at `4.99 per unit to new investors for five years, but demanded that similar incentives be given to cotton industry and to fruit grading and waxing units.

Let the government give details of the `65,000 crore investment commitments made during the previous summit, most of which remain unfulfilled CAPT AMARINDER SINGH, Congress deputy leader in the Lok Sabha