हिंदी
– Said, action should be taken against Razia Sultana and Aruna Chaudhary as per Raja Warring’s remorse
– Recover Rs 20,000 crore looted from exchequer by political transport mafia in last 15 years
Chandigarh, October 21
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab spokesperson and RTI activist advocate Dinesh Chadha terming the claims made by Punjab Transport Minister Amarinder Singh Raja Warring in Chandigarh as pretentiousness, said, “Transport Minister, you are enjoying the game of statistics, but the real taste for the people of Punjab will come when FIRs will be registered against the Congress and the Akali Dal’s transport mafia and the money looted from the exchequer will be returned.”
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Dinesh Chadha was addressing a press conference with evidence of looting of government transport during the Congress and the Akali Dal Badal governments. AAP spokesperson Malvinder Singh Kang was also present on the occasion. Addressing the media at the party headquarters here on Thursday, Advocate Dinesh Chadha asked Transport Minister Raja Warring to state in his report card how many of the thousands of permits he had illegally extended to Congress and Akalis had been revoked. How many cases have been registered and recovery of stolen tax has been started? He said that if the remorse of Warring for the last four-and-a-half-years of his tenure was true; the then Transport Minister of Punjab Razia Sultana and Aruna Chaudhary should be immediately removed from the Cabinet, who as ministers did not take any action against the transport mafia.
Chadha said, “Patting himself on the back, the Transport Minister said that he has stopped 258 buses, which has benefited the transport department by more than Rs 53 lakh per day. The department has lost about Rs 3,000 crore in the last 15 years due to such illegal buses.” He questioned the Transport Minister that if proper action had been taken against the buses operating in Punjab with 5,000 illegal surcharges, then according to Raja Warring’s own confession; more than Rs 15,000 crore had been looted from the exchequer of Punjab.
The AAP leader said that he had repeatedly requested the Transport Minister to take action against the Akalis and the Congressmen for extending route permits without any policy by writing a letter and sending a message on the tweet, but the Minister did not take any action against these political transporters. Chadha said that in his letter to the Transport Minister it was written that the bus permits issued by the Transport Department have a fixed limit of permits for government buses and private buses. In 1990, for example, the quota for public and private permits on state highways was 50:50. But since then, with the connivance of the Akali and the Congress governments; the transport policy has been violated to issue permits to politicians beyond the private quota.
He said to abolish the government quota indirectly, the permits of private buses were increased five times and many permits were increased ten times. Chadha had sent the letter along with the list of bus permits of Orbit Bus Company, Rajdhani, Prince Highway, Taj Travels and New Deep Transport to the Transport Minister as evidence, but no action was taken. He said, “The Honorable High Court also made it clear in its December 2012 judgment that these illegal increases in permits to benefit private buses are aimed at eliminating government buses. However, to date no action has been taken on these nearly 5,000 illegal permits and no action has been taken against the officials and leaders responsible for these permits.” Chadha demanded the Transport Minister Raja Warring to immediately revoke thousands of such permits and file cases against the responsible officials and politicians.
