Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Sept 11: Tall claims of the Government to hold a lengthy Legislature session in Srinagar, the summer capital of the State, have fallen flat with the Legislative Assembly Secretariat today issuing a provisional calendar for the autumn session with just seven sittings, five of which were reserved for the Government business.
This will be 10th session of the 11th Legislative Assembly.
Official sources told the Excelsior that soon after Governor NN Vohra issued a notification summoning both Houses of the Legislature to meet in Srinagar on September 30 (Monday), the Legislative Assembly Secretariat today issued calendar for the autumn session.
As per the provisional calendar, the Assembly session would last nine days and would have just seven sittings.
Of seven sittings, five have been reserved for the Government business and one day each has been kept for Private Members’ Resolutions and Private Members’ Bills.
The Government business was scheduled for September 30, October 1, 3, 4 and 8 while the Private Members’ Resolutions would be taken up on October 5 and Private Members’ Bills on October 7.
Starting September 30, the session would conclude on October 8. In fact, the session could be further reduced to six sittings as the day of seventh sitting i.e. October 8 has been reserved for Government business, if any, which means that if there was no Government business scheduled for October 8, the session might last only till October 7.
The Government had earlier assured that it could be a lengthy session in Srinagar than usual. Instead, it has cut the sitting by a day as previously the session would last at least for eight sittings.
Speaker Mubarak Gul had also gone on record to say that the session would have more sittings this year than usual if not a very lengthy one. However, finally, the Government has settled for seven sittings only in the autumn session.
This means that there would be total 34 sittings of the Legislature this year as budget session in February-April in Jammu, the winter capital of the State, had 27 sittings. The Government has already ruled out convening third session of the Legislature (winter session) in a year.
The Government was of the view that increasing number of the Legislature sessions in a year from two to three would hamper development works especially in the hilly areas, which have a limited working season as the entire administrative machinery gets busy in the session.
The Parliament and other State Assemblies normally have over 60 sittings a year though a Parliamentary Standing Commi-ttee had sometime back recommended that Parliament and the State Legislatures should meet for at least 100 days in a year.
Meanwhile, a notification issued by Assembly Secretary Mohammad Ramzan has asked the MLAs to submit not more than 10 questions for the autumn session-five each in starred and un-starred categories on or before September 17.
The MLAs can also submit two Private Members’ Bills and two Private Members’ Resolutions before the same date.
The starred questions are debated during Question Hour in the Assembly while the MLAs get written replies only to the un-starred questions.
The demand for increasing number of Legislature sessions from two to three and sittings from about 35 to at least 50 has quite often been raised by several legislators. Even Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had at one time favoured the idea of holding three sessions of the Legislature in a year. However, the idea has not found favour with the Government.
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