Ahmedabad, Oct 8 : Slamming Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi over the recent sops offered to state employees, veteran Congress leader Shankarsinh Vaghela has said the state government is fooling the employees over the hike in dearness allowances.

Modi had announced sops worth rupees 2,000 crores for state government employees on the occasion of completion of a decade in power

Talking to reporters here, Vaghela said: "This is a case of fraud with the state employees; Gujarat government has not done anything new. The high court had questioned the state government as to what salary are they planning to give to employees with fixed incomes.

"And in order to give an answer to the High Court Gujarat government hiked the salaries. The dearness allowance is being given after a delay of six months and if we count the interest for that time period then the employees are suffering a loss of 106 crore rupees," he added

"Gujarat is not developed industrially, it is in third spot; Orissa is in the first place and Chhattisgarh being the second. Both Orissa and Chhattisgarh have not spent money on vibrant events nor used eminent industrialists for the image marketing of their states yet they are on the top spots. But since the creation of Gujarat the state is not on the top then what was the entire point of spending money, so callously?," he asked.

Vaghela further said that Gujarat still did not hold a good report card on parameters of industrial and agricultural growth despite spending millions of rupees on the so called vibrant events in the state.

"The growth percentage of both agriculture and irrigation has dipped other than cotton sowing of other crops has also reduced. The agriculture land has also reduced; the state government that is entangled in corrupt practices is making false claims to save its face," he added. (ANI)