Akali Dal urges Punjab Governor to order judicial probe into flood crisis

Chandigarh : The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Saturday urged Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit to order a judicial probe into the ‘manmade’ flood crisis created in Punjab by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government.

SAD also appealed to Governor to send an assessment of the damage caused to the Centre to avail enhanced relief for the state.

A high-level SAD delegation which met the Governor here and submitted a memorandum to him, appealed to him to get the excise scam probed by the CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED) even as it requested for a probe into the role of the Chief Minister, the Excise Minister and all others responsible for causing a loss of hundreds of crores to the state exchequer as admitted by the Cabinet subcommittee.

The delegation also urged the Governor to declare formation of a union by employees of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) as illegal, stop the transfer of land to Haryana for construction of a new Vidhan Sabha building, withdraw the proposal to double parking rates for vehicles other than those from the union territory in Chandigarh, channelise the Ghaggar from Khanauri to Makror Sahib and create an elevated road between Shatrana and Shergarh village in Patiala on the Jammu-Katra highway to resolve issue of obstruction of the natural flow of water in the area.

The delegation led by Prem Singh Chandumajra, Bikram Singh Majithia, Surjit Singh Rakhra, Daljit Singh Cheema and Sukhwinder Kumar while presenting the memorandum to the Governor detailed now a judicial inquiry by a sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana high court was necessary to book all those who had caused unimaginable misery to lakhs of Punjabis by failing to do their duties.

The delegation also urged the Governor to send an assessment of the damage caused by the floods to the Centre so that enhanced relief could be given to the state.

It noted that the state had failed to even get the damage assessed by the Central team which would come in the way of release of funds from the Disaster Management Fund to the state.

It also urged the Governor to direct the government to submit a report on the complete damage as well as relief distributed till now including how the Rs 218 crore received from the Centre had been spent.

It informed the Governor that ‘girdwari’ had not been done till yet and demanded that interim relief should be given at the rate of Rs 25,000 per acre to farmers whose paddy crop had been destroyed and Rs 5 lakh should be given to householders whose houses had been damaged by flood waters.