Congress always tries to portray anti-Punjab image: Sukhbir

Stating that Punjab's fiscal health is sound, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today accused opposition party Congress of attempting to tarnish the image of the state by presenting a "wrong" financial picture.
Participating in debate on state budget, Badal said: "The Congress party which presented financial figures here (in the state assembly) on state's fiscal health was wrong. The party has always tried to portray anti-Punjab image for political gains."
The Deputy CM appealed to the opposition benches not to malign the state for their "selfish" political reasons but analyse the budget as well as the state's fiscal health by taking a holistic view.

In his message to the opposition, Badal said "I appeal to everyone to support our positive initiatives and desist from criticism for the sake of criticism".
Talking on the issue of debt, Badal said that the SAD-BJP led state government in its tenure had successfully brought down the debt as percentage of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) from more than 50 per cent to now 31 per cent.
Contrary to opposition party's claims, Badal insisted that the state's financial position was sound and state was paying salary and wages to its employees and carrying out development work.

When Sukhbir was speaking, Congress MLAs Charanjit Singh Channi and Kuljeet Nagra stood up from their seats and asked the Speaker why speeches of Congress leaders were not being recorded by a regional electronic media channel.

Accusing the state government of suppressing their voice, both leaders walked out of the House protesting against non-coverage of speeches.
Replying to the charge of Congress leader Lal Singh's claims of heavy debt owed by public sector undertakings, Badal said that out of outstanding debt of state PSUs of Rs 67,800 crore, about Rs 48,000 crore was food credit limit.
He said out of the remaining Rs 19,700 crore debt left, as much as Rs 11,000 crore was productive debt incurred by PSPCL to create infrastructure including transmission lines. He listed other productive expenditure also before concluding that the net debt was only Rs 6,000 crore.

Drawing comparison of state's debt with that of other states ruled by Congress party, he said that the growth of Punjab's debt had been lowest since 2002 as against the growth in outstanding debt of other states.
He stated that the debt of Haryana increased by 325 per cent to Rs 75,310 crore now from only Rs 17,730 crore in 2002. Similarly the debt of Andhra Pradesh increased by 294 percent from Rs 48,000 crore in 2002 to Rs 1.94 lakh crore.
Punjab, which was at Rs 35,730 crore, has now reached Rs 1.02 lakh crore, he said.
Giving an example, Badal said: "Maximum debt is on industrialist Mukesh Ambani and then Anil Ambani and their debt is productive one. Whether higher debt means their financial position was worse.