Assembly adjourned sine die amid din
Budget, 4 Bills passed after Opposition’s boycott
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, March 21
Amid the Opposition walkout, the Budget session of the third Legislative Assembly was adjourned sine die after passing the annual Budget, related demands of the various departments and four Bills.

With the BJP unrelenting in their demand for a CBI probe into the alleged sale of land at Pantnagar and Haridwar and creating ruckus in the House for the last four days, the government decided to advance the passage of the Budget and the Bills.

"The last straw came when the Opposition decided to boycott the dinner hosted by Assembly Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal. They broke the tradition and tried to drag the chair of the Speaker. The Opposition members had not been interested in running the House and been creating pandemonium in the House for the last four days. Today they reached the well of the house. We have said the government is ready to hold discussions provided the Opposition allows the House to run. But our aim is not to stall the business of the House," said Indira Hridayesh, Parliamentary Affairs Minister.

However, after getting whiff of the government's decision, the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Ajay Bhatt held a press conference to put the party's views after the Speaker adjourned the House till the evening session.

As soon as the House was reconvened, the Opposition benches remained silent so that Ajay Bhatt could announce the Opposition's boycott.

"We want the House to run for the entire period, but it seems the government is bent upon having its way so we have decided to boycott the House," said Bhatt and moved out of the House followed by the BJP MLAs.

The government then passed the Budget amounting to Rs 25,329.84 crore for the year 2013-2014 and the four Bills which are the Uttarakhand Appropriation Bill, 2013, the Uttarakhand Water Management and Regulatory Bill, 2013, the Uttarakhand Town and Village Planning and Development Bill (Amendment) Bill, 2013, the Uttarakhand Technical University (Amendment) Bill 2013, the Uttarakhand Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Bill 2013.

Uproar by BJP may force govt to cut short Budget session
Neena Sharma
Tribune News Service

Senior MLAs should set a precedent by encouraging the younger and newly elected MLAs to participate in debates. The House should compulsorily run for 60 days and I think time has come to strictly impose this provision. —Indira Hriyadesh, Finance Minister

Dehradun, March 21
The pandemonium created by the Opposition BJP for the last five days may force the Congress government to cut short the Budget session that is expected to run till March 23. But the session during which the Budget for the year 2013-2014 was passed will also go down as the one in which the BJP Opposition created history by disrupting the proceedings of the House continuously for the last five days and also failing to utilise question hour, that did not take place for the last five days.

Barring the interim Assembly session that was convened on January 12, 2001, that did not witness any disruptions and ran for 18 hours, 48 minutes, walkouts and disruptions became frequent, once the first Congress-led government took power in the state.

"The senior MLAs should set a precedent by encouraging the younger and newly elected MLAs to participate in debates. The House should compulsorily ran for 60 days and I think time has come to strictly impose this provision," said Indira Hriyadesh, Parliamentary Affairs Minister.

According to the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly records, though stalwart ND Tewari, as the first Chief Minister, led the first Congress government, after the first few years the total time devoted to work became gradually less. The first session that began in February 2002 clocked 18 hours, 50 minutes, with no adjournments. However, during the second session, adjournment took place for 4 hours, 25 minutes.

In 2003 the first session clocked 29 hours, 49 minutes of sitting, the second session ran for 31 hours, 50 minutes and the House was disrupted for 7 hours, 53 minutes.

Later in 2007, when the turn of Congress came to don the role of the Opposition in Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly, it, too, staged protests and long periods devoted to adjournments became an established practice.

The second Vidhan Sabha that sat between 13.3 2007 and 16.3 2007 had disruptions of 2 hours, 22 minutes, and 16 hours, 54 minutes were devoted to work.

While comparing the track record of the Congress and the BJP governments, both seem to be in a race to out do each other and continue to have their share of rabble rousers as MLAs, who are seen frequenting the well more often.

So, do noisy MLAs get booted out at the time of the election? It may not be the case, as former Speaker of the Uttarakhand Assembly and BJP leader Prakash Pant, who was appreciated for his debating skills and in running the House, proved unlucky and was not re-elected. "In Uttarakhand a trend of sorts has taken hold, where the newly elected MLAs think if they raise sound and fury in the House, it would appeal to the voters,” said Pant.

Bhati panel report has made fearful BJP to stall proceedings
Tribune News Service

Haridwar, March 21
Dhirendra Pratap, spokesperson for the Congress, said today that BJP legislators were disrupting the proceedings of the Assembly to divert attention from the involvement of senior BJP leaders in various scams.

Dhirendra, while speaking to The Tribune at the state guest house here, said the BJP was trying to pressure Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna as it feared that the Bhati Commission report would name former Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank for his involvement in scams. However, the BJP would not succeed in its motive and its move would backfire, he added.

He referred to the indictment and sentencing of former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala in a teachers’ recruitment scam and said a similar treatment would be meted out to those indicted for corrupt practices in the report.

Dhirendra said Finance Minister Indira Hriyadesh presented a balanced budget keeping in mind the limited resources available with the government. “The Budget favoured the common man, women, minorities, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. No new tax has been introduced. When the state government is spending 70 per cent of its Budget on paying salaries to its employees and its revenue resources are limited, the present Budget is quite appreciable,” he said.

Dhirendra, who is also the secretary of the Congress Disciplinary Committee, took cognisance of the reports that expelled Congress leaders hailing from Haridwar were seen at various programmes of local MP Harish Rawat. He said every party office-bearer and representative should ensure that such people were not allowed to attend party programmes.

“Rao Affaq Ali and Ahsan Qureshi were expelled from the Congress for misbehaving with national party leaders Anis Ahmed and Chaudhary Birendra Singh when national vice-president Rahul Gandhi was in Dehradun. All legislators and MPs should understand that by interacting with the expelled leaders they violated the discipline of the party and also dented the morale of honest party workers,” said Dhirendra.

He added as the date of the municipal election had been announced, factionalism in the party would end. Rahul Gandhi had asked the Congress workers to ensure that the party records a historic win in the MC election as it did in the local bodies elections in Karnataka recently.

Stop adopting rigid positions in House, Kunjwal tells BJP, govt
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, March 21
Witness to uproarious scenes in the House, the Speaker of the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly, Govind Singh Kunjwal, today said that both the Opposition and the government should desist adopting rigid positions and should show interest in running the House.

After being accused by the Opposition BJP of failing to heed to their demand of passing directives for a CBI inquiry into the alleged sale of government land in Pantnagar and Haridwar, Kunjwal said that instead of levelling accusations the Opposition should have allowed for debate. "The accusations were one-sided and a decision cannot be taken on the basis of accusations. In order to prove its point the Opposition should have used the medium of discussion in the House,” he said.

Kunjwal said that he tried to break the deadlock existing between the government and the Opposition from day one. “For ironing out the differences, I had called a meeting which was attended by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Indira Hridayesh and Leader of the House Vijay Bahuguna. Both of them waited for Leader of the House Ajay Bhatt but he did not turn up," said Kunjwal.

The Speaker said that he called the meeting thrice but Bhatt did not respond. "Today, he came late and I again called up Parliamentary Affairs Minister Indira Hriyadesh who had gone back after waiting for Bhatt. They held discussions but nothing came of it,'' said Kunjwal.

In fact Kunjwal said that he had desisted from suspending the MLAs who had created a ruckus in the House yesterday by tearing papers and flinging paper balls at him and Indira Hridayesh. In fact , Hridayesh had brought this issue before during the meeting today. ''The Opposition adopted these tactics to draw attention away from the Bhatti Commission report. But the government will do it's work," she said.

Van gujjars demand ST status, Assembly seat
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, March 21
Van gujjars have sought an Assembly constituency reserved for the community in the state.

At a convention of van gujjars held at the Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK), Dehradun, the van gujjars unanimously put forward their demand for reserving an Assembly seat for the community. They also sought the Scheduled Tribes status for the community even while accusing the state Forest Department of harassing them repeatedly.

“In the states of J&K and Himachal Pradesh, the van gujjars enjoy the status of the Scheduled Tribe, but in Uttarakhand instead of giving the ST status, the state government is harassing van gujjars. We demand that the process of declaring van gujjars as the Scheduled Tribe should be initiated immediately and like Jammu and Kashmir, a seat in the Assembly should also be reserved for our community,” said Mohammad Yusuf, a van gujjar residing in the Rajaji National Park.

Aklobibi, a woman representative of the tribe, said, “When our men die, forest officials harass women by saying that the land was given to your husband and now you have no claim on it. We face oppression at the most troubled time in our lives.”

Other speakers asked the Uttarakhand Government to fulfil its promises made in the election manifesto and follow the directions of the National Human Rights Commission treating them under the Scheduled Tribe and Other Forest Dwellers Act, 2006. They also demanded a check on the forcible eviction of those van gujjars who do not wish to leave the forest.

Presiding over the meeting, Padmashri Avdhash Kaushal, chairperson, RLEK said, "I have brought to the notice of Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna in the presence of Yashpal Arya, state president of the Congress that the government should immediately organize a function in Dehradun and redress the concerns of van gujjars".

He said the distribution of land pattas in the joint names of husband and wife to the van gujjars of Gaidikhatta, Pathri and Bibiwala must be done without delay.

Trapped leopard rescued
Our Correspondent

Pithoragarh, March 21
In one of the two incidents of leopards poaching in the region last evening, forest employees succeed in rescuing a leopard caught in a trap set by poachers near a forest in the Garsera village of the Garur block of Bageshwar district.

In the other incident, Nainital forest officials arrested two poachers and recovered a leopard skin and bones from their possession.

“The rescued leopard has been sent to Almora Zoo for treatment and rehabilitation,” said a forest officer at Bageshwar.

According to sources, a girl from the village witnessed the trapped leopard early morning when she had gone for a walk around the fields near her house. “On seeing the trapped leopard, the girl informed her parents, who conveyed the information to Forest Department officials at Baijnath from where a rescue team of the department reached the spot,” said Ram Singh Bisht, range officer of the department.

“Despite lack of tranquiliser with the department, the officials succeed in rescuing the leopard. Had the information not reached the department, another leopard would have fallen prey of poachers,” said the range officer.

Nainital DFO Madhukar Thakaten said the poachers were arrested on a tip off, who gave the exact name and location of the poachers. “The traders agreed to delivery skin and other organs of the leopard after they became convinced that we were real wildlife organ traders,” said the DFO, adding that as soon as the poachers came with the possession, they were nabbed by the officials. “The poachers have been sent to a 14-day judicial remand by the CJM court of Nainital district,” said the DFO.

Central School for Tibetans celebrates graduation day
Our Correspondent

Mussoorie, March 21
The 44th graduation day of Central School for Tibetans was celebrated with fervour in Mussoorie today.

Chief guest Col Penpa Tsering (retd) inaugurated the programme by lighting a ceremonial lamp. It was followed by offering of floral tribute and a scarf at the portrait of the Dalai Lama. The students and the staff of the school sang the national anthems of India and Tibet on the occasion.

Col Tsering along with the principal and the rector of the school, the president of the Regional Tibetan Women’s Association and the president of the Regional Local Tibetan Youth Congress felicitated the outgoing students. The students also sang patriotic Tibetan songs and Saraswati Vandana.

Dorji Gyalpo sang a Hindi song while Tenzing sang an English song. Jaimphal delivered a speech in the Tibetan language.

The outgoing students recollected their stay in the school and thanked the school staff for imparting them quality education. The school captains also addressed the gathering and wished the outgoing students success in their careers.

Principal Anita Narula blessed the students and wished them luck and success in their future endeavours.

The school rector, Ngodup Norbu, advised the passing-out students to work diligently and sincerely for society and the community. He also announced various scholarship schemes for the students.

The chief guest blessed the students and said they should never give up and face challenges of life with will power. The senior-most teacher, Asit Katayan, proposed a vote of thanks. Maths teacher Subas Raut coordinated the entire programme that ended with a group photograph of the outgoing students.

Rs 10 lakh grant for Purnagiri fair
Our Correspondent

Pithoragarh, March 21
The state government has sanctioned a sum of Rs 10 lakh as grant for infrastructural arrangements of the Purnagiri fair, which is scheduled to begin from March 29 this year.

The arrangements of lights and sanitation, besides other essential needs, will be done out of this grant which will be released soon, said Hemesh Kharkwal, Champawat MLA.

According to the local MLA, this is for the first time after 2010 that the state government has released any grant for this fair. In 2010, the government had given Rs 5 lakh as grant to the fair