The Adani Group has issued its official clarification on the massive seizure of nearly 3,000 kilograms of heroin at a port in Mundra, in Gujarat’s Kutch district, where it is the “port operator”. The company made the statement public on its social media handles and explained that it is “only the port operator” and therefore lacks the “authority to check shipments arriving at the port.”

The port is run by Adani Ports and SEZ (APSEZ), which is under the Gautam Adani-run conglomerate, stated Livemint in its follow up report of the seizure by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), which is the enforcement agency under the Union Finance Ministry. 

The consignment seized from two containers at the Mundra port around September 15 was reported to weigh in at “a total of 2,988.21 kg Afghan heroin”. It is estimated to be worth  ₹21,000 crore according to the news reports the international market value of the seized heroin per kilogram was about ₹5-7 crore. This makes it “the single largest seizure of heroin in India till now” and as reported so far perhaps is also one of the biggest drug busts across the globe.

However, the media coverage around this rather explosive story has been rather muted. It is over a week later that the Adani Group issued its statement on Tuesday September 21, where it emphasised, “The law empowers the Government of India’s competent authorities such as the Customs and the DRI to open, examine and seize unlawful cargo. No port operator across the country can examine a container,” and that they were only “running the port” adding, “We sincerely hope that this statement will put to rest the motivated, malicious and false propaganda being run on social media against the Adani Group. APSEZ is a port operator providing services to shipping lines. We have no policing authority over the containers or the millions of tonnes of cargo that pass through the terminals in Mundra or any of our ports.” 

Media statement on the malicious social media campaign against the Adani Group on the seizure of illegal drugs at Mundra Port. pic.twitter.com/z4gutdzKyK

— Adani Group (@AdaniOnline) September 21, 2021

Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani, also shared a video message the same day: “As a nation, never in our history have we created a crisis but have always stepped up in support, to help the world get through a crisis.” 

“As a nation, never in our history have we created a crisis but have always stepped up in support, to help the world get through a crisis.” – Mr. @Gautam_Adani, Chairman, Adani Group pic.twitter.com/9EwmYrJ7ui

— Adani Group (@AdaniOnline) September 21, 2021

Remember hounding of actor Rhea Chakraborty over drug allegations?

It is interesting that the official clarification statement from Adani group also only calls out what it calls “the motivated, malicious and false propaganda being run on social media against the Adani Group” and has not even mentioned any mainstream media outlets of ‘biased’ coverage. Perhaps a first for the mainstream media as well as any Indian who reads or watches television news knows that even a minor drug seizure has often fuelled massive ‘debates’ on TV, and even bold headlines with salacious allegations in print and on social media.

Everyone remembers how actor afte actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death by suicide in 2020, his partner, actor Rhea Chakraborty was dragged through the muck with vile allegations being made against her on a daily basis. Soon attacks on other celebrities, actors, directors etc had followed and were fodder for ‘prime time’ and ‘super prime time’ kind of news shows each of which claimed to have unearthed ‘exclusive’ details even before the police had. It had gotten so bad that in October 2020, a civil suit was filed before the Delhi High Court by four Hindi film industry associations and thirty-four leading film producers against the vicious and derogatory reportage by a section of the news media.

The suit named Arnab Goswamy and Pradeep Bhandari of Republic TV, as well as Rahul Shivshankar and Navika Kumar of Times Now as defendants, and prayed that they be directed to refrain “from making or publishing irresponsible, derogatory and defamatory remarks against Bollywood as a whole and members of Bollywood, and to restrain them from conducting media trials of Bollywood personalities”. The plaintiffs took umbrage to certain terms used by these media houses in their reportage, such as “dirt”, “filth”, “scum”, “druggies” and expressions such as “it is Bollywood where the dirt needs to be cleaned”, “all the perfumes of Arabia cannot take away the stench and the stink of this filth and scum of the underbelly of Bollywood”, “This is the dirtiest industry in the country”, and “cocaine and LSD drenched Bollywood”. 

Now, after this drug seizure that is bigger than any TV studios collective worth, Twitter users are calling out the media coverage, or the lack thereof.

Will there be a media trail & such questioning with poking mics to Adani ?#GujaratDrugs #MundraPort pic.twitter.com/c4VChmL3PC

— Niraj Bhatia (@bhatia_niraj23) September 21, 2021

Why doesn’t anyone call it #AdaniPort? What is the #Modia afraid of??

Had this seizure taken place in any non-BJP State, the #GodiMedia would have been making a hue & cry 24×7, but now it maintains pin drop silence?#HumDoHumareDo #MundraPort #BJPGujaratDrugsModel @KTRTRS pic.twitter.com/Q94N4SHrrL

— Putta Vishnuvardhan Reddy (@PuttaVishnuVR) September 21, 2021

According to news reports, the importer firm, named “Aashi Trading Company, is alleged to be run by M Sudhakar and his wife G Durga Purna Vaishali”, they were “arrested by the DRI from Chennai a few days back and they were later brought to Bhuj town in Kutch. On Monday, the couple were produced before a special court for NDPS cases in Bhuj that granted 10 days’ custody of the two to the DRI,” stated the news report. Livemint added that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has “reportedly initiated a money laundering probe into the recent seizure of a record nearly 3,000 kg heroin from two containers at the Mundra port in Gujarat.” 

The last time Adani Ports had made it to the headlines was in April this year, when New York-based stock exchange S&P Dow Jones Indices has said that it has removed Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd from its sustainability index due to the company’s “business ties with Myanmar military” stated news reports on Tuesday. The Myanmar military has been accused of severe human rights violations that have reportedly followed the coup in February this year. Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd., the country’s largest private multi-port operator is reportedly paying over Rs 225 crore to the military-backed Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) in ‘land lease fees’ for a port in Yangon .

On March 31, the United States imposed sanctions against two Myanmar military companies. An Australian human rights lawyers collective had claimed that Adani Group is financially involved with one of the companies. 

Related:

Dow Jones removes Adani Ports from index for alleged ‘links with Myanmar military’

Walmart and Adani join hands to build massive warehouse in India

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Amritsar: An anti-drug awareness rally

Public health advocates are now calling for the state to ensure all private and public health facilities adopt auto-disable (AD) syringes, which are fitted with safety plungers that break off after a single use–to ensure there is no reuse.
 
The deputy commissioners of six districts of Punjab had on July 5, 2018, banned over-the-counter sales of syringes at chemist shops and pharmacies, as part of the state government’s renewed crackdown on the use of heroin and other injectable narcotics.
 
In June 2018 alone, the media had reported 23 deaths from drug overdose in Punjab, placing pressure on the Congress-led state government to curb drug abuse, which had been one of its key election promises.
 
On winning state assembly elections in March 2017, chief minister-designate Capt Amarinder Singh had claimed he would wipe out Punjab’s drug problem “within four weeks”. He had resolved to set up a task force to work directly under the chief minister’s office. “The STF will launch a crackdown against drug smugglers and small-time suppliers. Psychiatrists would be appointed in drug rehabilitation centres to provide treatment to addicts as they are only consumers,” he was quoted as saying in the Hindustan Times on March 12, 2018.
 
A massive addiction problem
There are an estimated 860,000 opioid users in Punjab, of which 230,000 are dependent, that is, they need to consume drugs in order to function normally, according to a 2015 study commissioned by the central ministry of social justice and empowerment and the Punjab government.
 
Heroin is the most commonly used drug in Punjab (53%), followed by opium (33%), with pharmaceutical opioids the least common (14%), the study found.
 
The addicts were found to be preponderantly male–99%; 76% were aged between 18-35 years; and 89% were literate, with some form of formal education.
 
The average heroin user spends about Rs 1,400 per day to feed their addiction, more than 3.5 times the state’s daily per capita income of Rs 392 (or Rs 142,958 annually in 2017-18). This figure for opium users is Rs 340 per day and pharmaceutical-opioid users Rs 265 per day, the study said.
 
The epidemic is estimated to affect up to 67% of families in certain districts of Punjab, and has become a major socio-economic and political issue.
 
Punjab’s long-running drug abuse problem is attributed to several factors, prime among which is its location along a porous border with Pakistan, which itself is well-connected with the Golden Crescent–an area that covers Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, one of Asia’s largest opium-producing regions–which enables narcotics to enter Punjab more easily than other parts of India.
 
There have also been allegations of official complicity in facilitating the trade–especially of the police, which has led to several arrests, as well as of powerful politicians including Bikram Singh Majithia, a minister under the previous Shiromani Akali Dal-led government.
 
The quick uptake of drugs among young men is blamed on Punjab’s high youth unemployment rate–16.6% of 18-29 year-olds are unemployed, compared to the national average of 10.2%. Lacking the skills to work in the services or manufacturing sectors and facing an increasingly mechanised agricultural industry, many rural, educated youngsters have been left adrift, according to this 2017 research paper.
 
Recent efforts to fight the problem
Last week, Punjab’s cabinet of ministers decided to recommend to the central government that first-time drug traffickers be punished with the death penalty. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act currently prescribes the death penalty for repeat offenders only.
 
The move is seen as an effort to quell criticism from opposition parties of the Congress government’s failure to wipe out drugs as promised.
 
Amid allegations of police involvement in the drug network, on July 5, 2018, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh ordered compulsory annual drug checks for all government employees.
 
At the same time, some district administrators issued orders prohibiting the sale of syringes without prescription, but the state government distanced itself from the move following criticism that banning the sale of syringes available on the open market could lead to increased sharing and use of discarded syringes, propelling the spread of infectious diseases.
 
“The intent of solving this problem may be noble, but the management tool being used is questionable,” Rajiv Nath, joint managing director of Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices Ltd, had told IndiaSpend after the ban was announced. “This will amplify the problem of syringes being reused by drug addicts and accelerate the spread of hepatitis C in Punjab, an area with an already challenged healthcare infrastructure.”
 
In India, around 40 million people are infected with hepatitis B and at least 6 million with hepatitis C, according to 2017 World Health Organization estimates. While statewide figures for Punjab are hard to come by, a state task force to tackle hepatitis C (HCV) records the prevalence at 3.29%, or about 650,000 patients.
 
There were 56,975 positive cases of HIV recorded in Punjab in 2017, a positive rate of 1.33%, according to data released by the Punjab State AIDS Control Society (PSACS). Amritsar had the highest number of positive cases at 14,309 (2.58% positivity rate).
 
Some believed the ban on syringes would disproportionately affect chemists and pharmacy owners, who could face additional harassment from police keen to appear active in the “war on drugs”.
 
Commentators had also pointed out that getting around the ban would be easy. There would have been nothing stopping drug users from buying syringes online, for example, and often at a cheaper price.
 
“Remember that since Punjab is so closely located to Chandigarh and Haryana, anyone could just cross over the border and buy syringes there,” Ratti said.
 
Other solutions
The chief minister’s office, while rolling back the ban, directed deputy commissioners across the state to issue orders to chemists to prepare an inventory of syringes and keep a record of their sales including the buyers’ details.
 
A solution using a new technology was also suggested–auto-disable (AD) syringes, which are fitted with safety plungers that break off after a single use. All prescriptions must specify the use of AD syringes and both private and public health facilities should accelerate a switch, the Indian Medical Device Foundation suggested in a July 7, 2018, letter to Punjab’s principal secretary of health.
 
Up to 16 billion injections are carried out across the globe annually, of which 25-30% take place in India and only 37% are deemed safe and necessary.
 
Concerns around safe administration of injections in India persist, despite economic development and improvements in healthcare. As many as 21 people were reported to be infected with HIV in Uttar Pradesh earlier this year after a health worker used the same syringe on multiple patients, NDTV had reported in February 2018.
 
AD syringes have been cited as a viable and cost-effective solution to prevent the re-use of syringes and spread of infections, according to a May 2018 Health Technology Assessment study by the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh.
 
The Andhra Pradesh government recently issued a notification announcing that all public hospitals in the state would switch to AD syringes by June 28, 2018, which is World Hepatitis Day, based on the recommendations of the PGIMER report.
 
This is something public health experts would like to see emulated in government policies across the country.
 
(Sanghera, a graduate of King’s College, London, is an intern with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

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Kashmir Singh (53, extreme left) and his son Daljeet (30, extreme right), a 10th-class pass, harvest peas in Pindiyan village, 40 km from the Pakistani border. In once-prosperous Punjab–proving ground of the green revolution–drugs, unemployment and a slowing economy have caused widespread anger and despair.
 
That extreme assessment of India’s 11th richest state was made by a drug kingpin in a dark, controversial film called Udta Punjab (Flying Punjab). The statistical reality, as IndiaSpend reported on January, 31, 2017, is that Punjab–ground zero of a green revolution that ended India’s image as a land beset by starvation–has failed to grow its economy or prepare its young people for the future. Employment and economic growth lag the national average.
 
The reality in Punjab–as IndiaSpend found after travelling through the districts of Amritsar, Tarn Taran, two rural and border districts and Ludhiana, an industrial centre–echoed the film and statistical assessment. The desire to leave their villages for better prospects elsewhere was common, and people expressed anger at the rise of drugs, the decline of jobs, and the failure of aspirations. The overriding demand: Change.   
 
***
 
Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Ludhiana: It was cold and overcast at noon, when the clouds parted to allow in weak sunlight and much-needed warmth. We were in the village of Heir, 4 km south of Amritsar airport, where departures to Tashkent, Doha, Dubai and Singapore reflect the flight of the Punjabi from his native land. Along the broken road to the main village square, a group of men, young and middle-aged, sat around talking.
 
What, we asked, were the crucial issues for the assembly election of February 4, 2017? They answered in unison: Unemployment. “Look at us,” said Amrinder Singh, 34, science graduate, father of two. “It is the middle of the day, and all of us are sitting here whiling our time. There is nothing for us to do here.”  
 
After his graduation, Amrinder–well built, smartly dressed in jeans and sneakers–did find a job at a private company. Dissatisfied with the Rs 15,000 salary, he resigned. Amrinder wanted, as many young Punjabis do, a government job. He applied, unsuccessfully, to be a physical-education teacher and police sub-inspector. “To get selected, one must pay bribe, sometimes upto Rs 20 lakh,” said Singh. “Even then, there is no guarantee that you will get the job.”
 

Amrinder Singh (34, centre in black shirt) wanted, as many young Punjabis do, a government job. He applied, unsuccessfully, to be a physical-education teacher and police sub-inspector. Singh has been unemployed for eight years, waiting for a government job.
 
Singh’s family does own farm land, but as families expand and farm sizes fall–from 3.9 hectares to 3.7 hectares over five years from 2005-06 to 2010-11, according to 2010-11 Agricultural Census data, the latest available–farming isn’t an option.
 
“Already, one brother is looking after the farm, what will I do?” asked Singh. Has he considered a  business of his own? “Only those who have political backing can start a business,” Singh claimed.  
 
The end result is that Singh has been unemployed for eight years, waiting for that government job.
 
“It’s not just me,” he argued. “Most of the young men in the village suffer the same fate. That’s why most of us are addicted to alcohol, tobacco or drugs. Three people from our village died of drug overdose in the last two-and-a-half months.”
 
Punjab’s drug problem is a political issue, with one part of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine accusing Congress president Rahul Gandhi–who said one in 10 Punjabi youth were now addicts–of “defaming brave Punjabis”. In January 2017, Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal was quoted as saying: “We are trying to save the youth of our country. The image of Punjab should not be tarnished… the Congress called us drug addicts and Rahul Gandhi tarnished the image of Punjabis by calling them so.”
 
Punjab’s deep and spiralling drug problem
 
There are nearly 230,000 opioid dependent and 860,000 opioid users in Punjab, according to the 2015 Punjab Opioid Dependence Survey, conducted by researchers from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Society of Promotion of Youth and Masses, a non-profit working towards prevention of drug abuse.
 
The survey of 3,620 drug-dependent individuals found that 99% of opioid dependents are male, 54% are married, and 55% are addicted to heroin, a synthetic opioid drug that causes feeling of euphoria and, at Rs 400 a gram, is one of the costliest drugs in the market. While 80% of addicts tried to quit, no more than 35% received professional help. Opioid dependents spent Rs 1,400 per day on drugs or an estimated Rs 7,575 crore statewide every year.
 
“Drug addiction is more a symptom than a disease,” said Ravinder Singh Sandhu, retired sociology professor from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. “Unfortunately, people still treat it as a personal and not a sociological problem.” Sandhu’s 2009 sociological study of 600 drug addicts from urban and rural Punjab found that 73.5% were aged between 16 and 35. Those who were illiterate (40.6%) and with education up to fifth grade (22.3%) were prone to drug addiction in rural areas, while those with a 10th-grade education (44.6%), or more, were susceptible to drugs in urban areas. One in four respondents was unemployed.
 

Ravinder Singh Sandhu, a retired sociology professor from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, said people still treat drug addiction as a personal and not a sociological problem. Sandhu’s 2009 sociological study of 600 drug addicts from urban and rural Punjab found that 73.5% were aged between 16 and 35, and one in four respondents was unemployed.
 
“Drug addiction is directly linked with poverty and not with prosperity, as is the belief,” said Sandhu. He implicated the quality of education in Punjab as a reason for the dissonance between what young people aspire to be and what they become.
 
For instance, while literacy and the general education budget rose over a year to 2016-17, spending on primary education and incentives to retain students in school were cut, leading to a doubling in the primary school dropout rate in one year, we reported on January 31, 2017.
 
Thousands of semi-educated youth over the years were left unprepared for a job market that has jobs only for the best or, as Amrinder Singh in Heir village contended, for the well-connected. This failure of aspiration adds to the stress that fuels drug use, said Sandhu.
 
How a post-graduate in English, football player became drug addicts
 
Harinder (name changed) is 28, a post-graduate in English who could not find a job for four years. He and his friends first tried heroin, he said, because they were “bored”. He was hooked to the drug and soon found he needed a fix first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
 
Harinder’s family was well-off, and money was never a problem. He did think of quitting, but it did not work. “If you try to quit on your own, the whole system collapses, and the body aches,” he told IndiaSpend at the 250-bed Swami Vivekanand Government Drug Deaddiction and Rehabilitation Centre (one of five such centres in Punjab), where he had checked himself in.
 
For Kuljeet (name changed), 35–graduate, national-level football player and heroin addict–admitting himself was, as he put it, “the last chance to save my life”. He was once a security officer in Attari and started using opium largely out of curiosity. Kuljeet said he did not know of “side effects”, and when it became scarce, he switched to easily available heroin, which he dissolved in water and injected. He lost his job, and sold his wife’s jewellery. She filed for divorce and his six-year-old son is now in a boarding school.
 
It’s been five days for Kuljeet at the Centre, and he hoped he could get his life back–what’s left of it.
 
The role of personal morality and larger economic failures in the drug problem
 
A psychiatrist (requesting anonymity since the election code of conduct was in force and he isn’t authorised to speak to the media) treating drug addicts at the civil hospital of Tarn Taran, 25 km south of Amritsar city, said he saw up to eight new addicts and up to 30 follow-up cases every day:  80% of the addiction is related to heroin.
 
“When I started in 2008, most cases were of pharmaceutical drugs, such as morphine, lomotil, tramadol, but now heroin is more common,” he said, identifying the stigma involved as the greatest challenge in treatment. “Most people still see drug addiction as a moral failure,” he said. “In fact, it’s a chronic relapsing psychiatric illness with biological, social and psychological causes.”
 
There are larger economic failures that drive the drug problem in the border districts, which are especially vulnerable to drugs and report higher rates of addiction than inland areas.   
 
“If the border districts were offered better health, education and employment facilities, they would not be tempted to smuggle drugs,” said J S Oberoi,  a deputy inspector general with the Border Security Force, which guards the border with Pakistan. Many farmers with holdings between two and three acres, he said, work as drug-runners for as little as Rs 10,000 per run.  
 
Caught between farms and city, dreams and reality, many Punjabis at a dead end
 
It is the pea-harvesting season and Kashmir Singh, 53, his family, and 30 other labourers are bending low to pick peas. We are in Amritsar’s Pindiyan village, 50 km from the industrial town of Jalandhar and 40 km from the Pakistani border.
 
“Usually, we have less than five months of work every year,” said Kashmir. During other months, he tries to get work as a casual worker in other villages or the nearby town. Since he earns less than Rs 60,000 a year and has no land, he is eligible for a government-issued “blue card”, the other requirement for which, in rural areas, is that you have less than 2.5 acres of land–it is also given to those with less than 100 sq. yards of land in urban areas.
 
But Kashmir hasn’t got his blue card, more than a year after applying.
 
Blue card holders also get atta or wheat at Rs 2 per kg and dal or pulses at Rs 30 per kg. He hasn’t heard of the 100 days of employment guaranteed by the 12-year-old Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) Act. “We don’t have any such card,” he said.
 
Others around Kashmir knew of MGNREGA but alleged that most cards were held by village panchayat office workers, who siphoned off government payments, a common-enough problem with the world’s largest rural jobs programme, IndiaSpend reported in February 2016.
 
Kashmir’s son, Daljeet, 30, works alongside his wife and children. He is a 10th-class pass, and so is his wife. They would prefer working in a factory, but most factories around the area closed down some years ago. He has considered migrating to a city, but there isn’t land they can sell to buy a house and renting is expensive. So, they are stuck in Pindiyan, with no job opportunities and no way of realising their hopes of a better life for their children.  
 
 
The owner of the land Kashmir and Daljeet work is as unhappy as they are. Harbhajan Singh owns the two acres that he farms for wheat and peas. Over the last two months, he has lost Rs 35,000, as the rural economy temporarily collapsed after notebandi, as the November 8, 2016, withdrawal of 86% of India’s currency, by value, is called (you can read our special section here).
 
“Peas are sold at less than Rs 10 per kg, which does not even cover the cost of fertilisers, seeds and labour,” said Harbhajan. It is a good thing we don’t depend only on farming, added Harbhajan, who was a soldier for 18 years and worked as a security guard at a bank for 24 years and earns pension from both. One son is in the army, and the other other looks after the farm.
 

Harbhajan Singh was a soldier for 18 years and worked as a security guard at a bank for 24 years. He owns the two acres that he farms for wheat and peas. Over the last two months, he has lost Rs 35,000, as the rural economy temporarily collapsed after demonetisation.
 
“We are tired of both the Congress and the (Shiromani) Akali Dal,” said Harbhajan. “We will give chance to a new party this time.” Around his house, we notice posters and the flag of the Aam Aadmi Party, which now rules Delhi and hopes to gain ground or come to power in Punjab.
 
Industries decline, young people leave and anger wells up against the Badals
 
By now, Ranjeet Singh’s story sounds familiar. At 37, he runs a shop in Tarn Taran’s Darda village, which he cannot leave because his mother has cancer. Others like him have left, said Ranjeet, to seek opportunities in other states.
 
More than half the village–without healthcare or a ground for children to play–is scheduled caste, so they do not own any land. “Since there are no factories and farm work, we are forced to migrate,” said Ranjeet Singh, a portly man dressed smartly in grey pants, vest, pink shirt and red turban.
 
He introduced us to his neighbour, Devinder Singh, 22, an arts graduate with a diploma in electrical, industrial work. He is the most educated person in his family, but he had not found a job in two years. He unsuccessfully applied for a linesman’s job, another with the railways. Devinder was just back from Gujarat, where he was a factory worker for a month. His father has cancer, and his sister, a 12-class pass, is also unemployed.
 
The unemployment rate among its youth is 16.6% while the Indian average is 10.2%, as IndiaSpend reported. Punjab’s rural youth joblessness rate in 2015-16 was 16.5%; more than 7 percentage points higher than rural India’s 9.2%.
 
Punjab’s industries, services and overall economy grew 5.9% in 2015-16, but that lagged the national average of 7.6%. In 2016-17, with India’s growth is likely to fall below 7%, according to the latest government estimate, released on January 31, 2017, Punjab’s growth will recede further.
 
This slowdown was revealed at an industrial estate close to Darda, where we saw more than 15 shuttered factories, some overgrown with vegetation. Some villagers said these factories began to shut seven years ago for reasons they did not know or remember.
 
As many as 18,770 factories closed between 2007 and 2014, when the Shiromani Akali Dal was in power, the Hindustan Times reported on February 3, 2014, quoting right-to-information data obtained by the Punjab Pradesh Congress Samiti (Punjab state congress committee): 8,053 factories closed in Amritsar, and no new industries were started in Tarn Taran, Moga, Rupar and Mansa districts, according to the data.
 
We found much anger directed at the Badals, the family that controls the ruling Akali Dal faction.
 
“The Badals own most businesses in the state, so either you give them profits or they will squeeze your business,” alleged our driver Gurpreet Kahlon. “They were too busy making money for themselves to think of people’s good.” Kahlon has no further hopes from Punjab. He has worked in Qatar for three years and now plans to migrate to Australia, where his brother is a driver.
 
The Shiromani Akali Dal, as this Scroll investigation revealed on March 25, 2016, appears to have links to a diverse set of industries, from stone-crushing, sand mining, cable distribution, liquor distribution and bus transport. Two years ago, the Tribune also reported how the Badals had majority stakes in transport business, hospitality and media businesses.
 
In Heir village, ruling party claims–and the road–fall apart
 
Back in Heir, we met former sarpanch Balwinder Singh in front of his sprawling bungalow. Of the village’s 2,500 adults, 350 have government-issued blue cards–meaning, as we said, they have incomes less than Rs 60,000 per year and less than 2.5 acres of land–and 300 earn government pensions.
 
“We have made all roads pucca, except one whose work is pending because of the election,” said Balwinder. When we reached the main road of the village, his claims disintegrated, much like the road.
 

Balwinder Singh, a former sarpanch of Heir village, near Amritsar, in front of his sprawling bungalow. We asked him about the drug problem in the state, and he said: “When the parents can’t control their own children, how can they expect the government to?”
 
“This road has not been made in 20 years,” said Baljeet Kaur, whose husband worked 40 years in Dubai and son, despite being a graduate, works at menial jobs in an army canteen. “There are no street lights, and we don’t venture out at night because drug addicts hang out here.”
 
We asked Balwinder Singh about the drug problem, and he said: “When the parents can’t control their own children, how can they expect the government to?”
 
A few blocks ahead, we met tea-stall owner Narinder Singh, 36, a blue card holder who gets wheat and never pulses as he is supposed to.
 
“Every blue-card holder gets rations on time,” said Balwinder.
 
Narinder said he tried applying for funds to build a house under a government-subsidised housing programme, the Indira Awaas Yojana, but he didn’t get any money.
 
In Heir’s scheduled-caste block, Lakwinder Singh, 36, showed us the garbage-dumping yard and the sewage line that floods when it rains. He and his family are tired of the stink, but they don’t know where to complain.
 
“We have applied for money to build a toilet, but we didn’t get it yet so we have to defecate outside,” said Singh. “We do not believe any political party will fulfil its promise or make a difference in our lives.”
 
We storified our tweets from our travels in Punjab. You can read them all here.
 
(Yadavar is principal correspondent with IndiaSpend.)

This article was first appeared on IndiaSpend
 

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