Government to issue White Paper on fiscal health of the state: CM

Shimla
Regular monthly interaction between the Ministers and workers of Congress party would be held at Congress party office, at Rajiv Bhawan, Shimla to ensure speedy redress of the grievances of the Congress party workers. This was stated by Chief Minister Thakur Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu here today. This move has been initiated in consultation with State congress President Pratibha Singh, he said adding that this would improve better coordination between State Government and workers of the Congress Party including the public.
The Chief Minister himself initiated this move by visiting Rajiv Bhawan today and met various delegations, party workers and common people who came from different parts of the State and listened to their grievances for about three hours.
While interacting with the media on the occasion, the Chief Minister reiterated that the State Government is fully committed to fulfilling all 10 guarantees in their ‘Pratigya Patra’, as assured to the people of the State during the recently concluded general assembly elections. He said that the old pension scheme has been reinstated in the very first cabinet meeting, which would benefit more than 1.36 lakh government employees. He said that other guarantees would be fulfilled in a phased manner. Furthermore, he said that Rajiv Gandhi Day Boarding Schools would be opened in each assembly constituency of the State to ensure quality education to the students.
Furthermore, he said that the state government is marching ahead with a positive approach to improve the economy of the State so that the aspirations of the people could be fulfilled. However, Thakur Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu also highlighted the precarious financial health of the state and said that a white paper would be brought out on the economic condition of the state in the upcoming Vidhan Sabha session, thereby helping the people of the state to better understand the reality of the unmindful spending done by the previous BJP government. Furthermore, he advised the leader of the opposition to introspect about the last five years of the BJP government regime before casting any allegation.
The present state government has inherited a debt of Rs. 75 thousand crore and the then BJP government failed to release a sum of Rs. 11 thousand crore, due to the government employees as arrears. Additionally, over 900 institutions were opened and upgraded during the last six months of the previous government, which would have resulted in an additional burden of Rs. 5000 crore on the state exchequer, he added.
On the occasion, MP and HPCC Chief Pratibha Singh, MLAs Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Neeraj Nayyar, Principal Advisor (Media) Naresh Chauhan, and other senior leaders of the party were also present.
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