SAD counters charges

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 19

Claiming that the “white paper” presented by the Congress today was aimed at undermining the work done by the then SAD-BJP government, former Finance Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa came up with a “genuine super white paper” highlighting the “tremendous achievements on all fronts” during the alliance’s decade-long rule.

The Speaker, however, didn’t allow this document to be tabled in the House.

The paper said, “The government was able to reduce the annual deficit from a high of 4.79 per cent of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) during the previous Congress rule (2002-07) to 2.98 per cent of the GSDP in 2015-16.”

It further claimed: “The state’s revenue receipts increased from Rs 36,808 crore during 2002-07 to Rs 68,757 crore during the SAD-BJP rule (2007-12) and to Rs 1.31 lakh crore in 2012-17. VAT collections increased from Rs 19,960 crore during the Congress rule to Rs 80,005 crore during the SAD-BJP rule in 2012-17.”

Quoting RBI data, the SAD paper said Punjab had done fairly well in comparison to most states with regard to the increase in debt during the past 10 years. Punjab’s debt-to-GSDP ratio was 28.9 per cent against Centre’s 50.61 per cent in 2016-17.

On Congress allegation that the SAD-BJP diverted funds received under central schemes, the paper said, “The propagandists either do not know or pretend not to know that the government does not have spare accounts for separate schemes. On the contrary, all receipts of the state from all schemes are credited into a single consolidated fund.”