Haryana’s mounting debt, ministers pulled up: Khattar government faces Congress ire in Assembly

Incorrect information supplied by ministers on at least three occasions on the floor of the House further embarrassed the government. Speaker Gian Chand Gupta could not ignore the “errors” and advised the ministers to “personally verify and authenticate the information, before submitting it on floor of the House”. Calling it a matter of “grave concern”, Gupta even asked the ministers to take “exemplary action” against officials responsible for such incorrect information. Subsequently, some of these officials faced the axe, with a few of them getting suspended or chargesheeted.

Hooda kept attacking the government over the debt issue on Thursday, a day after the three-day session concluded. At a press conference, the Congress leader demanded that the government should release a “white paper on the rising debt on the state”. This was apparently a response to the CM’s accusation that Hooda was misleading people.

“Statement of the Leader of Opposition was beyond facts. Citing the 2021-22 report of the CAG, Leader of Opposition had said that the State has a debt of more than Rs 4,15,000 crore; while in reality the amount of debt on Haryana in 2021-22 has been shown at Rs 2,39,000 crore in the CAG report. A debt of Rs 2, 27,697 crores is recorded in the account books of the Haryana government,” Khattar had told the House on the last day of the session.

Sticking to his claims, Hooda told reporters, “The government has drowned Haryana in debt of more than Rs 4 lakh crore. Government has loans of Rs 3,25,000 crore and liabilities of Rs 1,22,000 crore. The situation has reached a point where the government is taking loans even to pay salaries to the employees. Due to this, there is a delay in getting salary to the employees many times.”

On the HKRN scheme, the Congress leader said, “The aim seems to be to eliminate permanent jobs, merit, reservation and recruitment bodies. Through the corporation, the government is playing with the future of educated and qualified youth. The youth are being exploited by making them do temporary jobs at low wages. Job of the government is to end the contract system and provide permanent jobs, but this government is promoting contract system by eliminating permanent jobs. Bypassing the merit process, the government has made the income of the family the basis for the recruitment for the corporation,” he said.

Saying that the “rationalisation of government jobs” was imminent, Khattar has tried to blunt the Opposition’s attack. “A Rationalisation Commission will be set up in the state to rationalise posts in government departments as per the requirement. This Commission will rationalise the number of posts in every department. Complaints of exploitation of employees were received in cases of outsourced employment done through contractors. Thus, ending the same, HKRN was set up to save all such employees from this exploitation. Through this Nigam, initially, temporary employment is offered for a period of one year on contract basis. These youth will have to leave the job if any other person is recruited on a regular basis through Haryana Public Service Commission and Haryana Staff Selection Commission. However, these youth can also apply for regular recruitment,” the CM told the House.

Meanwhile, an unprecedented flip-flop by the government marred proceedings of the House during Winter Session when Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader Abhay Chautala’s Calling Attention Motion on an alleged liquor smuggling scam was first admitted but discussion was refused in the House when Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala, who holds the Excise portfolio, said the matter was “sub judice”. The Speaker on Thursday said he would seek the “Advocate General’s opinion on which sub-judice matters can or can not be discussed on the floor of the House”.

The House proceedings were conducted in a digitised manner through NeVA, helping the Vidhan Sabha save 98 per cent of paper and about Rs 8 crore, Gian Chand Gupta said.