Terming the holding back of Punjab's Rural Development Fund (RDF) as unfortunate, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday urged the Centre to review the decision as the move would badly impact the works in the state.
Questioning the timing of the Centre's move, he said there was no precedent to not release the RDF that was due to the state during scrutiny of the utilization of previous funds.
The Chief Minister said he has asked his Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal to go to Delhi to meet Union Consumer Affairs Piyush Goyal to resolve the issue, which had hit the state hard amid the financial crisis it is facing.
The state government, said Amarinder Singh, will submit all utilization details as sought by the Centre, as it had done in the past too.
While this was not the first time the Centre had gone for scrutiny of the utilization funds, this was, however, a first as far as non-release of RDF was concerned, he said, expressing serious concern over the development.
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The Chief Minister said doubts were being raised in various quarters about the timing of the Union Cabinet's decision not to release to Punjab its due RDF funds to the tune of more than Rs 1,000 crore at the present juncture, amid the controversy and crisis over the farm laws.
The timing is suspect and points to the dubious motivation behind the move, he said, urging the Centre to immediately reconsider and give the state's dues against RDF while the scrutiny continues, as has been the case in the past.
The funds, as the Centre is well aware, are used for developing critical agriculture marketing infrastructure like construction of roads in the rural areas of the state, marketing yards, said Amarinder Singh, adding failure to release the funds would obstruct the development of villages and could further aggravate the angst of the farmers, who are in a prolonged agitation against the Central farm sector legislations.