RAILWAY INDUSTRY IN PUNJAB: Badal’s assurance to Railways Minister

Chandigarh, November 18 – The Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said here today that the SAD-BJP Punjab government would  respond “immediately and positively” to any proposal to set up a railway industry in the state and that “we are in fact keen on any such proposals from  all central ministries. In fact, we have been begging for it”

Responding to a statement by the Union Railways Minister Pawan Bansal which said that the government of India was ready to set up railways industries in Punjab if the state government facilitated land for the purpose, Badal said, “It will be a great news if at all the center sticks to it. We will follow it through with the railways ministry also. I will personally write to and  meet Bansal in this regard, “ said Badal in a statement released here today.

The Chief Minister said that he, his party and the SAD-BJP government in Punjab have been pressing for more central projects in the state for a long,  long time but all our pleas have gone unheard in the past. “Therefore, we are really happy about Bansal’s statement and, if he can indeed get us something, I will be personally beholden to him. ”

Badal further said that the UPA government had sat  on all our requests in the past, but if things change in future, “we will be the happiest. I believe that with four Punjab ministers in the Union cabinet, apart from the Prime Minister himself, Punjabis have a right to expect that the past would change and that the present government would give us an industrial bonanza. Unfortunately, our experience has been very disappointing so far. But I am willing to look beyond that.”

The CM said that there is an urgent need for setting up agro-based industries also in the state. “With the prospects of expansion in international trade with Pakistan and the rest of the world through the Attari-Wagha border land route, we would certainly need more and more units to diversify our economy. We want the center to give a push to agri-value addition so that Punjab farmers can break away from the paddy-wheat rotation and the state’s economy could branch out into fresh business zones.”