Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, July 17: Acrimonious scenes and walkout by former Minister and sitting Member of Legislative Council today marred the District Development Board meeting of Reasi district, which approved the Annual Plan for the current financial year without having discussion on the majority of the departments and performance registered under last year’s plan.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that right from the very beginning there were noisy scenes in the meeting chaired by Deputy Chief Minister, Tara Chand as Chairman of the District Development Board. As soon as the District Development Commissioner, Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary started welcome address, Member of Parliament from Udhampur-Doda constituency, Ch Lal Singh interrupted him and desired to address the meeting first on the ground that he had to take a flight from the Jammu Airport.
“This invited criticism from MLA, Baldev Raj Sharma, who stated that there should be some decorum and the laid down procedure should be adopted”, sources said. However, Deputy Chief Minister allowed the Member Parliament to address the meeting. Soon after speaking on certain issues, the Member Parliament left the meeting.
After this, Deputy Chief Minister, Tara Chand, was found in hurry as despite being Chairman of the Board he directed the District Development Commissioner to jump to the important points instead of highlighting the sector-wise performance registered under last year’s District Plan and sector-wise outlay proposed during the current year’s plan, sources informed. On the directions of the Chairman of the Board, DDC had to cut-short his presentation.
Expressing concern over avoiding of the discussion on the performance registered under last year’s plan and detailed presentation on sector-wise outlay for the current year, former Minister and sitting Member of Legislative Council, Jugal Kishore Sharma asked, “what is the fun of preparing booklet of Annual Plan and holding Board meeting when we don’t want to have department-wise discussion”.
“I want to speak on certain departments as I was not consulted by certain district officers before preparing the Annual Plan. Is this the good governance which the Government is boasting off”, sources said quoting MLC having stated in the meeting. The MLC even asked the Members of the Board as to how they would justify the passage of Rs 77 crore Annual Plan without discussion on the vital sectors, sources further said.
The acrimonious scenes again started in the meeting when BJP MLA, Baldev Raj Sharma started pointing towards MLC while speaking on the different issues. He even went to the extent of saying that MLC was not required to be consulted by the district officers before Annual Plan formulation, sources said.
“Baldev Sharma even stated that only MLA is required to be consulted in the Annual Plan formulation for being the true representative of the people”, sources further said, adding “infuriated over the remarks of the MLA, Jugal Kishore left his seat in protest and said MLA was ill-informed about the powers given to the Members of the Upper House in the Constitution”.
Though heated arguments between the MLA and the MLC continued for some time, the Deputy Chief Minister remained mute spectator and later MLC walked out of the meeting by remarking that no serious discussion was going on in the meeting and DDB was reduced to mere a platform for settling political scores, sources said.
Later, the DDB approved the Annual Plan without discussion on majority of the departments.
The stories carried out by EXCELSIOR regarding mining in the Trikuta Hills and hanging fate of Reasi grid station during the past 21 years came under discussion in the DDB meeting. “The DyCM directed the administration to look into the issue of mining and approach the Planning and Development Department for release of sufficient funds to complete the grid station”, sources added.
The concerned Chief Engineer was also criticized by the Board for his failure to properly project the requirement of funds for the completion of the grid station, sources added.
They said that everybody appreciated the performance of the DDC, Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary during the short period.
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