By IANS,
Chandigarh : Largesse of Rs.one crore that Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal has doled out from state government funds to his alma mater Lawrence School, Sanawar, in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, has raised a political storm in the state.
The opposition Congress Wednesday questioned the move by Badal to “dole out Rs.one crore of public exchequer money” to the elite boarding school in Kasauli Hills, 60 km from here.
Terming the move “grossly illegitimate and unwise”, former Congress legislator Sukhpal Singh Khaira said the deputy chief minister was drawing on funds meant for development activities in Punjab.
Badal is scheduled to be the chief guest at the annual day of the school Thursday, and is expected to give a cheque of Rs.one crore. Nearly four decades ago, the deputy chief minister was a student of the school.
“Doling out money to a Himachal school at a time when the economy of Punjab is in shambles, with colossal debt of over Rs.80,000 crore, while the state government is unable to pay salaries and pensions to employees, unable to honour welfare schemes and running into an alarming overdraft each month, is nothing but bizarre foolishness,” Khaira said, in a statement issued to the press.
Khaira said the funds were meant for the Punjab Nirman programme, under which development activities were undertaken. The money was meant to be used for the maintenance of roads, digging tube-wells, the development of historic villages, building Ambedkar Bhawan complexes and sports stadiums, augmenting water supply schemes, building dharamshalas and toilets and maintaining cremation grounds, Khaira said.
The former Congress legislator alleged that Badal was “acting like a feudal despot, with scant regard for tax payers’ money”.
He claimed that instead of drawing on state government funds, Badal could well have made a grant to his alma mater from the profits he made in his many businesses, including luxury hotels.
Khaira said he would move the court against Badal’s largesse to his school.
A spokesman of Punjab government Wednesday said Khaira’s were “wild allegations”.
The spokesman said: “The criticism of the grant to Lawrence School, Sanawar exposes the parochial mindset of the former legislator. The famous education institution belongs to the nation, not to a particular state. This 174-year-old institution is under the Government of India.”
The school, established in 1847, is a private one, although its management comprises a representative of the union ministry of human resource development.