Amethi Food Park become unviable after UPA refused gas supply: Harsimrat Kaur Badal

New Delhi: Countering Rahul Gandhi's charge of "political revenge" in the cancellation of a mega food park in Amethi, Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Thursday said the project had become unviable after the previous UPA government refused supply of subsidised gas.

In a letter to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, she said the promoter of the food park has submitted before the Mega Food Park review meeting that without supply of gas to the project at APM/concessional rates by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, the project would not be viable.

In a statement, she further said that the Petroleum Ministry had already refused to supply gas to the Mega Food Park in 2013 under the Congress government regime.

"In fact Shri Rahul Gandhi did not do proper homework about the project and did not take up the project under Congress regime. If Shri Rahul Gandhi was as serious about this Mega Food Park as he is today, this Mega Food Park would have been completed by now," Badal said.

The work on the mega food park has not started even in 2015 although the project was to be completed in 24 months after September 2010 when it was granted in-principle approval, the minister said.

Rahul Gandhi today attacked the Narendra Modi government in Lok Sabha over the reported scrapping of a mega food park project in his constituency of Amethi, accusing the Prime Minister of practising politics of revenge and not "politics of change" which he had promised.

The Home Minister had assured him that he would look into the matter and inform Gandhi.

In the letter to the Home Minister, Badal enclosed the factual details and chronlogy of events from the date of grant of in-principle approval in September 2010 up to the cancellation of project -- Shaktiman Mega Food Park Pvt Ltd, Jagdishpur, Uttar Pradesh -- in June 2014.

"The decision to cancel the food park was taken on merits by an inter-ministerial approval committee headed by the then Secretary, Food Processing Ministry, in view of ordinate delay in meeting the conditions of final approval," Badal said in the letter.

The cancellation of the in-principle approval was conveyed to the promoter on July 11, 2014, she said.

Raising the issue in the Zero Hour, Gandhi said: "Politicians offer promises to people and the one made by the Prime Minister is the biggest... What he is doing is politics of revenge".