It was quite literally a bundle of a reply that left its recipient flummoxed. A senior Congress MLA in Madhya Pradesh has received a reply running into massive 8,000 to 10,000 pages to a one-line question he had asked in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly and delivered in huge bundles in an autorickshaw at his home. Choudhary Rakesh Singh Chaturvedi called it a "cruel joke." The Deputy Leader of Congress Legislature Party has a tough task of poring through the contents of the 'longest' answer in the history of Parliament and Assemblies,if he decides to have a look. And this exercise may take several weeks,he said. "During the monsoon session on July 7,I had asked a question to which the state Housing and Environment Ministry last week sent me a reply in the form of number of huge bundles," he said. The reply came early this month. Chaturvedi said he had asked Housing and Environment Minister Jayant Malaiyya to state the names of industrial units which were issued NOCs from January 2006 to December 2008 regarding permissible emission limits. "I was astonished when eight to ten bundles containing the answer were delivered at my residence," he said. The MLA said as he was busy with the current budget session,he did not have time to open the bundles which according to his estimate contained 8,000 to 10,000 pages. He said the size of the answer makes it abundantly clear the motive of the officials. Chaturvedi said if the officials wanted they could have summarised the answer but they did not do so as they wanted to confuse him. "Now I will read the reply in instalments only when I have the time to do so," he said. Assembly Speaker Ishwar Das Rohani said the officials who sent this reply had not performed their duty properly. "I will make sure that such things do not recur again," he said.
