Shimla, Sep 15
Congress alleges gaging of voice,
*Stages dharna outside speaker’s chamber
The Opposition Congress lodged protest outside and inside the state Assembly on Tuesday
alleging gaging of their voice, and later staged walk out against the ruling of speaker for not allowing the discussion on the benami land deals.
Before the start of 7th day of proceedings in Vidhan Sabha, the members of opposition Congress staged dharan outside the chamber of speaker alleging that they are not being allowed to raise the people’s issue during the House, and their voice is being gagged.
As the House Assembled for the day’s sitting, Leader of Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri said that they have given notice under rule 67 in the house to seek the discussion on the benami land deals but speaker did not allow to raise the issue.
When the speaker Vipin Singh Parmar did not accept the opposition’s demands to raise the entire opposition walked out from the House.
Speaking on the protest Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said that the opposition did not behave as expected. “The opposition staged Dharna outside the speaker’s office and later they turned up in the House to seek discussion on the issue, which was not listed on the agenda,” he added saying that he condemned the opposition’s actions to create unruly scenes in the Assembly.
Congress, who has 21 members in the state Assembly lodged protest over confinement of its legislator Sunder Singh Thakur inside the SP Office Complex on Sunday and also walked out from the House. Congress and a CPI(M) members also staged walkout last evening when treasury benches tried to pass amendments in the three labour bills despite many objections.
In the absence of opposition, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Bhardwaj stated during a reply of a query in the question hour that BJP government has given as many as 745 permissions under section 118 of Land Reforms and Tenancy Act compared to 1,387 cleared during the Congress rule between 2013-17.
He said 417 permissions were given to buy lands for Industry , tourism units, apartments, hydropower units and 328 permissions were given to buy flats. However, under the Congress rules 543 and 845 permissions were given respectively.
The Minister said that most of permissions were given after simplifications of rules rather changing sec 118 as the procedures were simplified by allowing one time sanctions of permissions. Earlier to this such units have to seek the permissions from Patwari to Finance Commissioners and various departments like IPH, Public Works Department and Industry occur and the process was cumbersome.
Replying to a supplementary asked by Arun Kumar Kuka, Bhardwaj said that 122 applications to seek permission under rule 118 were returned to Deputy Commissions as such cases were found with the shortcoming in the codal formalities while 87 cases are pending under for sanctions with the state Government.
The Minister said that the Government was simplifying rules under rule for sake of ease of doing business. He said that state Government hosted global investors meet in Dharamshala and number of permissions were granted to attract the investors to set up their units in the state.
After the formation of the Jai Ram Thakur Government the ranking of state improved as state ranking of ease of doing business came down from 21 to seven, he added.
