akali dal demands withdrawal of Rs 20 lakh bond imposed on MBBS students as well as draconian move to give all services in municipal committees and corporations to “pre-selected” private players
Chandigarh, September 17 – The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today demanded a high-level Judicial Inquiry into the criminal negligence committed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in not maintaining the Madhopur barrage and condemned it for trying to pass off its negligence on a private company.
In a statement here, senior SAD leader Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said only a Judicial Inquiry could fix accountability for the deliberate negligence which led to the collapse of three gates of the Madhopur barrage and subsequent destruction of standing crops across lakhs of acres besides 56 deaths and loss of thousands of livestock.
Judicial Inquiry : Madhopur Barrage Gates Collapse: Dr Cheema Questions Govt
Dr Daljit Cheema accused the government of trying to shift blame for the entire fiasco on a private company. He said Minister Barinder Goyal had issued a show cause notice to Level9 Biz Private Limited for submitting an allegedly wrong report. This report claimed that 6.2 lakh cusecs of water could pass safely through the Madhopur headworks. The Akali leader said subsequent events had revealed that assessing the health of the barrage structure was never in the company’s scope of work. The reply of the private company supported this finding. “The company was given the task of estimating the design flood. This was in relation to the original design flood of the Madhopur barrage. This followed after the collection of hydrological data. It did this and its work was rated as satisfactory”.
Dr Cheema said the fact of the matter was that three gates of the Madhopur barrage had collapsed. The collapse occurred because they were not maintained. Additionally, the gates had not been tested. He said the Chief Engineer (Design) was himself unclear about the company’s role in analyzing the barrage’s structure. He is now saying that the report had been sent to the dam safety wing for detailed analysis. “All this calls for a judicial probe to fix accountability for this negligence”.
Punjab MBBS Bond Row: Dr Cheema Demands Withdrawal
The SAD leader also condemned the AAP government for introducing a policy. This policy requires students admitted in MBBS courses in government medical colleges to provide a Rs 20 lakh bond surety. This bond would be forfeited if they do not serve in rural and underserved areas for a specific period. He said the government should make the PCMS service attractive by giving commensurate pay. The government should also improve working conditions. They should focus on these rather than coming out with dictatorial and unethical conditions. He demanded immediate withdrawal of this measure. He said that under privileged students would not be able to come up with the sureties.
Dr Cheema also demanded the immediate withdrawal of government orders. These orders require municipal committees and corporations to pass resolutions. The resolutions assign cleaning, garbage lifting, sewerage cleaning, and lighting responsibilities to pre-selected private players. This is done after calling tenders. He said this was another attempt after the land pooling scheme to collect money by making tailor made contracts. The leader said that it was unfortunate that Committees who had rejected the resolution were being overridden and said if this proposal was carried through thousands of employees would lose their jobs.
Dr Cheema Urges Centre to Allow Sikh Jathas to Pakistan
Answering a media question, Dr Cheema said it was unfortunate that the central government had not withdrawn it’s advisory restricting State governments from giving permission to Sikh Jathas to travel to Pakistan to pay obeisance at Sri Nankana Sahib on the occasion of Parkash Purb of Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji in November. He urged the centre to withdraw the advisory in the wake of resumption of cricketing ties between the two nations besides calling for reopening the Kartarpur Corridor. He also
called for calm as well as the need to ensure the perpetrator of the ghastly murder of a boy in Hoshiarpur was awarded exemplary punishment. He said the incident should not be used to issue appeals against migrant labour which would cause unrest in society.
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