CHANDIGARH – The state is all set to press the NDA-led Central Government for a waiver of its long-standing loan of Rs 1 lakh crore and for sealing of the international border with Pakistan effectively to ensure snapping of supply line of drugs from across the border.
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 13 and try to impress upon him to make arrangements for waving the huge loan, mostly incurred to tackling decade-long militancy in the state. Punjab has been pleading for waiving of loan repeatedly, but sans any practical results so far.
The CM was also scheduled to meet Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti during his two-day visit to New Delhi. He will be formally calling on PM Narendra Modi and other Union ministers for the first time after the formation of the NDA government at the Centre.
The CM, it was learnt, would first try to persuade Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to waive the loan outrightly with a plea that the loan amount was only “standing in papers” as Punjab was not in a position to repay such a huge loan amount.
Highly placed sources said Badal had already done his “home work” to accentuate his arguments with the PM and other leaders. He would cite examples of certain north-eastern and other states that faced Punjab-like situation and were accorded complete loan waiver by the Centre. “If a full loan waiver is not possible due to some technical reasons, only then the CM would press for at least a moratorium on the interest component,” said Badal’s adviser Harcharan Bains.
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