SAD condemns Congress govt decision to hand over heritage memorials to private parties under PPP model
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has condemned the Congress government for deciding to hand over heritage memorials including the Baba Banda Singh Bahadur memorial and the Chhota and Vadda Ghallugharna monuments to private agencies under a public-private partnership (PPP) model.
Former minister Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said that it was shocking that the Congress government had equated its Circuit houses with heritage memorials while deciding to hand them over to private agencies so that they did not have to bear the cost for paying for their maintenance.
“You can commercialize Circuit houses but you cannot commercialize heritage memorials. This decision is against the sentiments of the Sikh community and will hurt their religious feelings and should be withdrawn immediately”, the SAD leader said.
Cheema also said that it was the responsibility of the government to maintain the heritage of the State.
“Hundreds of crores have been spent to establish these memorials which came up during the SAD-BJP tenure. It is shocking that the Congress government is not even ready to maintain them now and is handing them over to private parties for exploitation at will. The SAD will not allow this to happen under any cost," he added.
The SAD leader further said that "The sanctity of the memorials, which are associated with events of particular historic significance for Sikhs worldwide, should be respected. I urged chief minister, Captain Amarinder Singh, to intervene and ensure this decision is reversed at the earliest."
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The SAD leader also said this was not the first time that the Congress government had tried to forsake its responsibility towards heritage memorials. He said former Tourism minister Navjot Singh Sidhu had referred to the Virasat-e-Khalsa museum as a white elephant. He said the government should understand that it had a social and moral obligation to maintain the heritage memorials for future generations and they would not forgive them if it swerved from this solemn responsibility.
-PTC News
