Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday laid the foundation stone of four projects for Nadaun assembly constituency of Hamirpur district.

He laid the foundation stone of a project aimed at supplying 24-hour drinking water facilities to Nadaun city that would be equipped with state-of-the-art UV filter technology.

Benefiting the residents of all the seven wards of Nagar Panchayat Nadaun, this project is to cost Rs 44.66 crore and will be completed before summer this year.

He also laid the foundation stone of the Hotel of Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation to be built in Nadaun with an outlay of Rs 43.06 crore, to be completed by July 2025.

The Chief Minister also performed the foundation stone laying ceremony of the rest house of Jal Shakti Department’s at Gaggal to cost Rs 6.54 crore and Rs 14.02 crore Model Career and Skill Center at Jalari and to be made functional by June 2025.

Talking to media persons on the sidelines of the function, the Chief Minister said that the BJP failed in its role of constructive opposition and indulging in cheap politics ignoring the interests of the people of the State.

He said that none of the State BJP leaders nor the BJP Member of parliament from the State MP met Prime Minister Narendra Modi or other central leaders to seek financial assistance for the disaster hit Himachal Pradesh.

“The state government has sent claims of around Rs 10000 crore to the central government, which were supposed to be provided in the month of December, but the BJP leaders are creating hurdles in getting the amount released,” he charged.

“I appeal to the BJP leaders not to make false claims of getting special financial assistance from the Centre to misguide the people and also not to create hurdles in the way of the Government for getting financial assistance from the centre,” said Sukhu.

If the Central Government has given any special economic package to Himachal Pradesh in connection with the disaster, then the BJP leaders should provide details of the same, he added.

He said that when a resolution was brought in the Assembly to declare the natural calamity in Himachal Pradesh as a ‘National Disaster’, the BJP MLAs opposed it ignoring the sorrow of the people of the State.

On the question of allotment of departments to the newly appointed ministers, Sukhu said that the ministers from whom the departments have been taken will be given the newly created departments.

He said that some new departments such as the Infrastructure Department, Artificial Intelligence would be created in time to come and would be allotted to the ministers.

“The Central government undertakings were opposing the water cess levied by the state government on its hydel projects. Along with this, Rs 4300 crore of Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) was lying with the Central Government for many years which has not been released yet,” he said.