Congress questions SAD-BJP regime on Kali Bein issue

SULTANPUR LODHI: As SAD-BJP government is trying woo people with free pilgrimage programme, starting with much fanfare on January 1, Congress is countering the Badal government on the same ‘religious turf’. Sultanpur Lodhi MLA and Congress chief whip Navtej Singh Cheema is now seeking to put the state government in the dock on the issue of ‘neglect’ of historic Kali Bein during SAD-BJP regime.
“When state government is promoting the scheme of free pilgrimage, by flagging off special trains for the people, to gain political mileage it should answer people about what it has done in the last nine years for the Kali Bein, historicity of which pertains to founder of Sikh faith, Guru Nanak,” Cheema asked on Sunday.
He said that dirty water from several villages in Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur districts was still being drained into the Bein as state government failed to make arrangements for managing waste water disposal of these villages. “Even the Sewerage Treatment Plants (STPs) of four towns, Sultanpur Lodhi, Kapurthala Bholath and Begowal were not functioning properly and waste water from these towns was also being thrown in the historic rivulet,” he said.
He recalled that the first task Badal government did in 2007 after coming to power was to block funds of Rs 5 crore earmarked for the Bein project while Captain Amarinder Singh’s government had sanctioned project of Rs 69 crores for the Bein. “It was during the Congress regime that dirty water from 23 villages was checked from flowing into the Bein by making alternate arrangements and the situation largely stands at the point where they were left in 2007,” he alleged.
Cheema added that even the flow of fresh water into the Bein was stopped by BJP MLA from Dasuya at least twice during Badal’s regime and chief minister failed to intervene. “I have been raising the issue of Bein during assembly sessions also but nothing could move the state government,” he added.