Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union Minister Jitendra Singh Wednesday said that the Roshni scam had illuminated the “Gupkar bungalows” but extinguished hopes of the poor.
He said the Roshni scheme was launched in 2001 by the then government with an envisaged objective of raising an amount of Rs 25,000 crore for setting up power projects which were to provide electricity to every household, including those of economically-weaker sections of the society.
“However, in the final bargain, what was witnessed was that all the loot out of the scam went into the construction of lavish bungalows at Gupkar Road and other VIP locations whereas the poor neither got the electricity nor the house,” said Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel.
“Roshni scam illuminated the Gupkar bungalows, but extinguished hopes of the poor,” he said.
Singh said over the last decade, the BJP had been consistently demanding a thorough and impartial probe into the “embezzlement” that had taken place in the name of the Roshni scheme.
But, he alleged, successive governments run by the National Conference, Congress and the PDP did not agree to the probe and instead sought to “cover-up” the scam because the ministers and the chief ministers of the then governments were themselves beneficiaries.
Singh said it was only now under the Modi government when the investigative agencies were given a free hand to carry on their task that the entire scam had got unearthed and the skeletons were tumbling out. “While the Gupkar governments robbed the land that should have legitimately gone to the poor, it is under Prime Minister Modi that targets have been set to construct a house for each family under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana,” he said.