CHANDIGARH: After scrapping the controversial land pooling scheme, the cash-strapped AAP-led Punjab government seems to have landed itself in trouble. It is presently struggling to raise revenue to fund its populist schemes.In order to secure a loan to fund the schemes, the government has asked the Housing and Urban Development Department to prepare an inventory of the Rs 20,000 crore worth of property belonging to the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) for auctioning. The properties to be auctioned, after consultations with the Finance Department, includes residential, commercial and industrial sites in Mohali.This matter was discussed at a recent meeting headed by Chief Secretary KAP Sinha. However, GMADA at present owes a loan of nearly Rs 5,000 crore to financial institutions.Interestingly, out of the eight urban development authorities, only GMADA and the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority are financially viable in the state.The other six housing authorities, Amritsar, Bathinda, Patiala, Jalandhar, Anandpur Sahib (Urban) and Dera Baba Nanak, are allegedly unable to even meet their expenditure.Sources further said that a part of the total inventory could be used to raise a loan from financial institutions to fund populist schemes, such as providing Rs 1,100 monthly assistance to women above 18 years of age.Defending the move, sources claimed that this kind of practice is not new, as previous governments had also mortgaged assets of the state to raise loans and had even pledged future income to raise resources.During the SAD-BJP rule, the then government had raised a loan of Rs 2,000 crore by mortgaging its properties to banks. Later, the properties were transferred to the Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA) for auction after developing them under the optimum utilisation of vacant government land scheme.
Source link
