Namami Gange has failed, claims Congress

From alleging failure of the Namami Gange plan to rising unemployment in Uttarakhand, the Congress on Sunday released a chargesheet against the Central and the state governments claiming they have failed to deliver most of their promises.

Authored by senior Congress leader Navprabhat, the 12-page chargesheet, which came four days before the April 11 election in the state, said the Centre wasted Rs 20,000 crore in the name of cleaning the Ganga.

"The Rs 20,000 crore of the people's money went down the drain in the name of the Namami Gange plan and everybody knows the fact about the cleanliness of the mother Ganga. Surveys show the pollution in the Ganga has increased," the document said.

It also asked the government to explain how many sewage treatment plants were set up in the last five years for cleaning the Ganga.

Even the cleaning programme of the highly polluted Rispana and Bindal rivers in Dehradun, the two tributaries of the Ganga, was terminated, it alleged.

The chargesheet raised the issue of the rising unemployment in the hill state saying there are over 10 lakh registered unemployed people who are educated.

In the 2017 Assembly elections, the BJP had promised to create new jobs. But till now, the government has only deceived the youths, it alleged.

In the industrial estates run by the government-controlled the State Industrial Development Corp of Uttarakhand Ltd (SIDCUL), 20,000 jobs were on the verge of collapse, mainly due to the anomalies in the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the document said.

It also claimed that the Centre has set a limit of Rs 10 lakh for the GST in the state for small businessmen which is badly affecting the small shopkeepers and traders. In other states, such limit was on Rs 20 lakh only, it said.

On the education, it said the state government closed nearly 700 schools in the state without making any new arrangements. If the programme to close down schools continues, then 2,430 schools will be closed in the next three years, it said, adding that the government had put a question mark on the education of the children which in turn will increase the scourge of the migration from the hilly areas.

On the redevelopment programmes after the 2013 Kedarnath deluge, it said the Modi government failed to increase the package of Rs 7,500 crore released by the former UPA government. These funds were insufficient.

The promise of the loan waiver was also hallow, it said. In the past two years, nearly 15 farmers committed suicides in the state, it claimed. The government has also failed to double the income of farmers.

"The promise of doubling the income of farmers is just like a post-dated cheque and date of that keeps changing," it said.

The chargesheet slammed the both central and state governments for backtracking on its move to hold a CBI inquiry into Rs 300 crore National Highway scam at Udhamsingh Nagar district.

--IANS

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