Captain Amarinder Singh led Punjab Government on Tuesday transferred Rs. 1,96,57,190 to the bank account of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee (SGPC), to settle the entire pending claim of Darbar Sahib, Amritsar, against the state GST Langar, after the completion of all the necessary procedural processes.With this, not a single penny of the claims raised by the SGPC so far against this budgetary head was pending, said Special Chief Secretary Revenue, KBS Sidhu, adding that no claim had so far been received from the other two religious shrines – Sri Durgiana Mandir, Amritsar and Sri Valmik Sthal, Ram Tirath, Amritsar – for which the state government had in May this year allocated a whopping Rs 4 crore to the Deputy Commissioner, Amritsar.Of the total allocated amount against pending GST bills, Rs 3.5 crore was set aside for Darbar Sahib, Rs 35000 for Durgiana Mandir and the remaining for Valmiki Sthal, Ram Tirath.The Chief Minister has already directed the state Finance and Revenue departments to clear any further pending claims for the three shrines, as soon as they are raised, against GST incurred w.e.f 1-8-2017. He has also instructed immediate disbursal of all future claims also of the three shrines, said Sidhu.The Chief Minister has made it clear that the state government was committed to bearing the GST for these three shrines, in line with its notification of 100% refund against this head for Punjab’s share.
Notwithstanding the lies that the Akalis were peddling in their desperate bid to exploit religion for electoral gains, the fact was that the process of clearing GST pending dues against the GST refund had been initiated immediately after the requisite budgetary approvals were taken from the Punjab Vidhan Sabha in the Budget Session and the Finance Department had relaxed its guidelines of quarterly releases, said the Chief Minister.Further, said the Chief Minister, following the creation of a new Budget Head on this count, the process to generate the new DDO (Drawing and Disbursing Officer) code was taken up with the Accountant General, Punjab, by the Finance Department. As soon as the process was completed, the pending GST refund of Rs. 1,96,57,190 was transferred to the SGPC against their pending claims, he added.Not only this, the state government had decided to allocate the entire pending amount to the DC, Amritsar, to ensure its seamless disbursement, Captain Amarinder pointed out, lambasting the Akali leaders for resorting to blatant falsehoods to mislead the people on this sensitive religious issues.Describing the Akali statements on the issue as shameful and reprehensible, Captain Amarinder said the Congress was not in the habit of reneging on its promises, in sharp contrast to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leaders, who evidently believed in abusing religion for their political and personal interests.