Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha Budget session from today, all-party meet convened

Shimla, February 22

Vidhan Sabha Speaker Vipin Parmar toady sought the cooperation of all political parties for the smooth conduct of the Budget session of the Vidhan Sabha, commencing tomorrow.

He chaired an all-party meeting and urged them to ensure the smooth conduct of the session and optimum utilisation of the time allotted for various business items. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Bhardwaj, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Mukesh Agnihotri and CPM legislator Rakesh Singha attended the meeting.

Cooperation sought

Speaker urged parties to ensure optimum utilisation of time allotted for business

Only raise issues of their constituencies, MLAs told

Parmar said that he urged the members of the House to only raise issues concerning their constituencies and that, too, within the rules of the Vidhan Sabha.

“I have requested all political parties to ensure smooth conduct of the session so that maximum possible business can be taken up during 16 sittings,” he said.

He added that all preparations had been made for the session starting tomorrow with the Governor’s address. Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur would present the Budget for the 2022-23 financial year on March 4.

Parmar said, “The pandemic is still not over, so we cannot afford to let our guards down. We will allow only 70 persons, which is 50 per cent of the capacity of the visitors’ gallery, during the session,”. He added proper arrangements had been made to ensure law and order; 480 police and 70 CID personnel had been deputed on duty for the session.

He said that the MLAs had sought the government reply to 1,069 questions, including 722 starred questions, filed both online and offline. He added that six issues had been raised under Rule 101 and five under Rule 130, which had been sent to the government for reply.

A majority of the questions pertain to unemployment, price rise, bad road condition, increasing drug addiction, vacancies and incentives for the industry and the tourism sector.