Encouraged by the win in Punjab civic poll, the nine-month-old cash-strapped government has a huge burden to meet, the promises made to people in its Assembly poll manifesto and vision document released just ahead of civic polls.

According to sources, the Punjab government is trying hard to give promised smartphones to 50 lakh youths in the early months of 2018. There has been a delay in the launch of ‘Captain Smart Connect Scheme’ due to the ‘confusion’ over tax payment.

Similarly, despite the state government has issued a notification stating about the loan waiver for marginal farmers having loan up to two lakh, the farmer unions are adamant on complete loan waiver as promised by the state government in its manifesto. Data prepared by various departments and the State-Level Bankers Committee, Punjab, has revealed that of the originally targeted 10.40 lakh beneficiaries, only 3,94,499 will get the waiver or relief of up to a maximum of `2 Lakh on their crop loans.

“We are not satisfied with the state government’s claim of waiving off-farm loan up to `2 lakh. Congress had promised complete loan waiver before assuming power. Even, the meagre hike of `10 in sugarcane State Agreed Price (SAP) is much less than Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.  We have launched a statewide campaign to protest against Congress legislators in their constituencies,” BKU  president, Balbir Singh Rajewal, told The Statesman.

Also, to upgrade state’s Roads and Bridges, Sanitation, Street lighting, Fire services, Development of slum areas including debt servicing, other capital expenditure and miscellaneous expenditures, the State Finance Commission has estimated an expenditure of over `10,000 Crore. It is not only the case with Punjab’s urban infrastructure, but the rural roads are also crying for an immediate attention. Punjab government would need `2,900 Crore to repair rural roads of a total length of 2,300 kilometres (km). A total of 13,030 villages have a road connectivity up to 61,436 km out of which 2,300 km needs the immediate repair.

On 7 December, the Punjab Congress had released a vision document for state’s urban development. The document envisages the development of infrastructure, fire-fighting system up-gradation, water and sewerage management, parking management and e-governance. The vision document was released by Punjab chief minister (CM) Amarinder Singh in the presence of state Congress chief Sunil Jakhar and Local Government minister Navjot Singh Sidhu in Amritsar.