Current Events
But Where Did The Millions Disappear?
Ten Years After Allocation Of Funds in Punjab,
Still No Hospital!
SANJEEV VERMA
The Punjab High Court has pulled up the Punjab government for not completing work on the 60-bedded Mother and Child Care Hospital in Peerjain Village of Fatehgarh Sahib district in Punjab.
The hospital’s foundation was laid nearly 10 years ago by the then Congress government.
The High Court summoned Vini Mahajan, Punjab’s principal secretary of health and Welfare department, for an explanation.
Justice Rajesh Bindal, while hearing a contempt of court petition filed by Fatehgarh Sahib Congress MLA Kuljit Singh Nagra, on Thursday, March 10, 2016, directed Mahajan to be present on March 21.
The hospital’s foundation stone was laid by then Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh in December 2005 and the total estimated cost of the project was Rs. 70 million.
Kuljit Singh informed the court that construction had started in 2006 but with the formation of the Akali-BJP government in 2007, work was stopped due to politics.
Punjab had extended the deadline for the project from February 2014 to January 2016. But the court was informed on Thursday by Kuljit Singh’s counsel, Ramandeep Singh Pandher, through the photographs of the site that the construction work of the hospital was still at its initial stage.
Hearing the arguments, Justice Bindal also observed that the Punjab government seemed to focus on spending for publicity schemes and was found lacking on completion of the projects in time, timely payment of pensionary benefits to the employees which therefore forces aggrieved people to approach courts.
[Courtesy: The Indian Express. Edited for sikhchic.com]
March 15, 2016
Conversation about this article
1: Raj (Canada), March 19, 2016, 1:44 PM.
Gone to the pottie ;)