Haryana: Vidhan Sabha monsoon session from August 8 to be a stormy affair

Talking about Congress’ preparation for the monsoon session, Leader of Opposition in the Vidhan Sabha Bhupinder Singh Hooda said, “Congress party shall be proposing at least seven adjournment motions and nine calling-attention motions to hold a discussion on floor of the House on the issues related to unemployment, illegal mining, utilisation of panchayat funds, law and order situation in Haryana and also on Agnipath scheme. We shall also be raising the issue of Haryana’s share in Panjab University at Chandigarh. The state government will be questioned on all these issues of public importance on the floor of the House.”

INLD MLA from Ellanabad Abhay Chautala too said that the government will be answerable on several issues, especially the rising unemployment rate in Haryana. “The CMIE’s recent report claimed that the unemployment rate in Haryana was over 30 per cent. The chief minister’s statement refuting CMIE figures is condemnable,” Chautala said.

Citing statistics – 20,839 of 71,069 posts in the police department are vacant; 9,046 of 23,607 health department posts are vacant; 44,924 out of 1,49,624 posts in the education department are vacant etc. – Chautala said he had presented these figures in the Vidhan Sabha too. “There are various other departments in which thousands of posts are lying vacant, as on date. The truth is that the unemployment rate in Haryana is rising phenomenally. The government recruitments that BJP introduced in the past eight years, majority of such recruitments are stuck in courts of law,” he added.

Vidhan Sabha Speaker Gian Chand Gupta had earlier announced that a glimpse of the e-Vidhan Sabha will be seen in the upcoming monsoon session as the members of the House will use tablets instead of reading from the heaps of papers distributed as part of Vidhan Sabha’s proceedings.

In July, after inaugurating the two-day workshop of National e-Vidhan Application (NIVA) at Panchkula, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had said that “although there will be hesitation” in adopting tablets initially, “slowly the MLAs will become proficient in using the technology”. The e-Vidhan Sabha, Khattar added, will also prove useful from an environmental point of view as the system will make Vidhan Sabha paperless, “saving lots of paper and trees”.

“e-Vidhan Sabha will prove to be a milestone. Today, the whole world is moving towards digitisation. If we want to move with the new generation, then we have to use computers and information technology. Through NIVA, we can see the functioning of not only Haryana Vidhan Sabha but Lok Sabha as well as Vidhan Sabhas of other states. Along with this, you will also be able to compare the work of other assemblies. Big paper bundles of bills, notifications, question-answers etc. to be introduced in the Assembly used to be carried, but now all these will be present on the screen of our tablet,” Khattar had said.