India News | SAD, AAP Slam Pb Govt for 'deciding' to Hand over Memorials to Pvt Players
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Opposition parties SAD and AAP on Thursday slammed the Congress government in Punjab, accusing it of having decided to hand over the heritage memorials to private agencies under a public-private partnership model.
Chandigarh, Jun 18 (PTI) Opposition parties SAD and AAP on Thursday slammed the Congress government in Punjab, accusing it of having decided to hand over the heritage memorials to private agencies under a public-private partnership model.
Senior Akali leader Daljit Singh Cheema while condemning the state government for "deciding" to hand over the heritage memorials including the 'Baba Banda Singh Bahadur' and the 'Chhota and Vadda Ghallugharna' monuments to private agencies, said it is against the sentiments of the Sikh community and demanded its rollback.
Cheema, in a statement here, said it was shocking that the Congress government had equated its Circuit houses with heritage memorials while deciding to hand them over to private agencies so that they did not have to bear the cost for paying for their maintenance.
"You can commercialize circuit houses but you cannot commercialize heritage memorials. This decision is against the sentiments of the Sikh community and will hurt their religious feelings and should be withdrawn immediately," the SAD leader said.
"Hundreds of crore have been spent to establish these memorials which came up during the (previous) SAD-BJP tenure. It is shocking that the Congress government is not even ready to maintain them now and is handing them over to private parties for exploitation at will," he alleged.
The SAD will not allow this to happen at any cost. The sanctity of the memorials, which are associated with events of particular historic significance for Sikhs worldwide, should be respected, said Cheema.
"I urged Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to intervene and ensure this decision is reversed at the earliest," the former education minister said.
Aam Aadmi Party MLA Harpal Singh Cheema said the decision would lead to rendering government employees working in these memorials jobless.
He alleged that the Amarinder Singh-led government had been following the "footsteps" of the Badals when it came to handing over the government properties to their "loved ones".
He claimed that the previous SAD-BJP regime had also sold out prime government properties of heritage value and some other tourist spots to private players.
The government should immediately revisit its decision, which appears to have been taken in a hurry, and allow it to manage government properties in a transparent and efficient manner, he said.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)