Bikram Singh Majithia, Revenue and Information and Public Relations Minister, Punjab today blamed former Congress Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh for present power shortage in Punjab as the state was now paying dearly for ‘Zero Performance’ of incompetent congress Chief Minister.Answering the queries of media persons after a function organized by Shaheed Udham Singh Foundation to pay tributes to Great Martyr, Majithia said that incompetence of Captain Amarinder Singh could be gauged from the fact that Punjab was only state in India that has not sent any proposal to Union Power Ministry for Power Generation Plants. He said that Captain instead of generating power believed in purchasing power from private power sellers at exhorbitant rates and focus on buying power raises doubt about cut being received by Congress Party from power purchase. He said that it was unfortunate that instead of making Punjab self sufficient on Power generation front and attracting investment in industry sector, Captain spent his energy in scuttling those projects that were approved by previous SAD-BJP Government. He said that despite of all approvals procured by Parkash Singh Badal, Chief Ministe, Captain did not allow Bathinda Refinery to start construction, indirectly helping the other private refinery to capture the diesel market in Punjab. Majithia said that it was Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, who envisioned super mega thermal plants, got it approved from 9 Union Ministries, acquired land for them, got process of co-linkage initiated, entered power purchase agreement with them despite Punjab Congress Leadership creating hurdles at every step, three thermal plants were nearing completion stage that would start generating power by next year. He said that this year 69% deficient monsoon has created a sudden spurt in the demand of power and despite 10% extra power augmented than last year, we were facing shortage of Power. He said that if Captain was sincere to the cause of Punjabi, he should get 1000 MW extra power allocated from un-allocated central pool to Punjab as demanded by Punjab Chief Minister recently. Lashing at congress for its failure rein in rising prices of essential commodities, Majithia said that the economic model of UPA has totally collapsed and congress has now rendered before multi-national companies. He said that weekly price rise of petrol, despite global crude at lowest level reflects that Union Government has abdicated its responsibility to govern the country. Paying rich tributes to Shaheed Udham Singh, Majithia said that he feel ashamed of the fact that due to 45 year congress rule we have failed to realise the dreams of our Martyrs and Freedom Fighters for which they made supreme sacrifices. He said that our freedom fighters must be turning in their graves on seeing unprecedented multi-lakh crores corruption, poverty, price rise, unemployment, in-sensitive government being faced by people of India. He said that on this sacred day, we should collectively pledge to fulfill the dreams of our martyrs for which they lay down their lives. On a question regarding shortage of Sand, Majithia said that due to strict enforcement of Court orders, illegal sand mines were got closed and out of 542 only 241 mines were now functional. He said that due to mismatch of demand and supply, there was rise in price of Sand and Punjab Government had approached Union Government to relax mining norms to tackle this crisis. When questioned about ban on sale deeds, Majithia said that sale deeds of only illegal and unapproved colonies were banned and sale deeds of approved colonies have not been stopped by the government.Meanwhile, Majithia offered siropas to more than 200 Congress leaders and workers, who joined the SAD fold in his presence. Earlier Majithia also paid floral tributes before the portrait of Shaheed Udham Singh and visited Garhi village, where the party workers gave him a warm welcome. Prominent amongst those were present on the occasion included Chief Parliamentary Secretary N.K. Sharma, . Harpreet Kaur Mukhmailpur, . Vaninder Kaur Loomba (both MLAs), former CPS Raj Khurana, former MLA Jasjeet Singh Bunny, Senior Akali leader Deep Inder Singh Dhillon and Jaswinder Singh Jassi, President Shaheed Udham Singh Foundation.