Revival of confidence biggest achievement: Amarinder on one year of Cong govt

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh has said that "revival of confidence" across all sections of society was the biggest achievement of the Congress government in the past one year.

He said the farm issues continued to remain the top priority of the government which also thrust on attracting investment, skill development and crop diversification, among other steps required to revive the economic growth.

"Revival of confidence across all sections of the society is, in my opinion, the biggest achievement of my government during this one year. In the decade of the SAD-BJP misrule, people had lost all confidence and trust in governance, administrative and police functions.

"We have restored their confidence by simply changing the way things are being done across every function of the government, be it policing or ease of doing business or employment generation or elimination of mafia and goonda raj," Amarinder said here recently when he was asked what was his government's biggest achievement during first year of the term.

Amarinder along with his ministers were sworn in on March 16, 2017, after Congress stormed to power in 2017 assembly polls.

"It has been a successful roller-coaster ride for my government. Roller-coaster because of the sheer challenge of battling the fiscal mess and overall development crisis that we inherited from the previous government. And successful because, notwithstanding these problems, we have done and achieved far more than was feasible under the circumstances.

"Quite frankly, when I took over, I was also apprehensive about how we will manage, given the financial crisis, which, as it turned out, was much bigger than what we had expected...," he claimed.

Asked about major challenge of his government, Amarinder told PTI here, "The major challenge has, of course, been the paucity of funds and resources. This scuttled some of our plans for the first year, causing a few delays also here and there in the implementation of some of promises. But we are on top of it and have found new ways of generating revenue..."
Asked why his government was not taking action against those who "looted" the state during previous regime, the CM said, "While I do not believe in vendetta politics, I have made it clear that we will not spare anyone found guilty of any misdemeanor. We cannot just throw anyone behind bars on the basis of allegations."