Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Feb 6: The State Government today had to face major embarrassment in the Legislative Assembly when Deputy Speaker took serious cognizance of furnishing contradictory replies to Members of the House and also deferred a Calling Attention Notice as the Ministers expressed their inability in giving a satisfactory answer.
“How is it possible that a same question has different replies and different figures? The Government is misleading the House. You don’t take your Members seriously,” said Nazir Gurezi- Deputy Speaker, who was in the Chair, when the BJP MLA R S Pathania alleged that the figures mentioned in reply furnished in response to his Calling Attention Notice regarding non-implementation of e-Assembly Project in J&K State Legislature were contradictory to the answer of a similar question by other Member.
Pathania urged the Chair to cross check the figures in replies furnished to him earlier in response to a similar query on e-Assembly project and today’s Calling Attention Notice. He pointed out contradictions in the figures and sought a response over the same from the Government.
Even as the Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Choudhary Zulfkar, who was responding to the Call Attention in absence of Moulvi Imran Raza Ansari, Minister for Information Technology, said that the Government would enquire into the matter, the Deputy Speaker took serious cognizance of the lapse on part furnishing contradictory replies to similar questions.
“Veeri Saab (Minister for Parliamentary Affairs) it is unfortunate. Either you are taking this House lightly or misleading,” Gurezi reprimanded while looking towards the Minister.
“You don’t take the House as well as its members seriously. What is this?”, he added.
When the Deputy Speaker was admonishing the Government, CPI (M) MLA Mohd Yousuf Tarigami mocked that there were two replies to same question apparently because of two parties in ruling alliance.
As A R Veri assured the Chair that the matter would be looked into besides furnishing a satisfactory reply later on as the Minister concerned was not present in the House at the time, the Deputy Speaker deferred the Calling Attention Notice and directed the Government to give right answers.
Earlier, in response to the Calling Attention Notice of R S Pathania, Zulfkar Choudhary said that the bottlenecks in the implementation of E-Assembly project have been removed and the work is now apace to implement the project at the earliest.
While giving reasons for the delay in implementation of the project, the Minister said that the legislative complexes in both the divisions were not WI-FI enabled and WI-FI facilities had to be created afresh which is now ready. He said the main software for the project was imported from Rajasthan and the customization of the software for inclusion of Legislative Council module took time as the Rajasthan Assembly is unicameral while the JK Assembly is Bicameral.
He said now the bottlenecks have been removed and that the NIC and Assembly Secretariat are working in tandem to integrate and implement the project at the earliest.
Giving details of the project, the Minister said that Rs 3.57 crore e-Assembly project was sanctioned in the year 2014 and Rs 2.59 crore have been released in favour of the State by the Central Government under DARPG while Rs 97 lakh were released by the State Government for the project so far.
He said the project consists of various components that include Web Software Application, Mobile Application, Wi-Fi Setup, Hardware like Smart tabs, Scanners, Digital Signatures and UTM (Firewall).
He said the project aims at making the process chain of the Assembly and Council related to sessions online, thereby reducing the dependence on paper and speeding up the process.
The Deputy Speaker again got annoyed and expressed his displeasure when NC MLA Altaf Ahmad Wani tore the papers and threw the same towards Chair before staging a walkout in protest against what he alleged, unsatisfactory reply by the Minister concerned in response to his Calling Attention Notice with regard to overloading of Receiving Station at Aishmuqam and Sallar, besides non-availability of Power supply in Pahalgam Constituency.
Visibly upset over unwanted behaviour of the MLA, Mr Gurezi said,” Kya Karte Ho (what are you doing)? You have made this House a joke.”
Maintaining that the behaviour of MLA was not proper, the Deputy Speaker lamented that he had not seen such an unruly attitude of Members of the House. “Either you are not aware of the Rules or you don’t want to follow the same,” he added.
At this, the CPI (M) MLA Mohd Yusuf Tarigami sought to correct the Chair by stating that all Members of the House should not be dubbed as unruly, following which Gurezi said that he did not mean to say all but a few Members were not abiding by the Rules.
Earlier, NC MLA Altaf Ahmad Wani came into Well of the House and staged a vociferous protest alleging that the Minister concerned was not making a satisfactory reply on his Calling Attention Notice. He tore papers and threw the same towards the Chair before staging a walkout.
In response to the Call Attention Notice, Minister of State for Power Asiea Naqash said that the work has been allotted for the up-gradation of receiving station at Aishmuqam while there was no proposal of augmentation of receiving station Salia. She said the total agreement load of the 6.3 MVA receiving station is 2.03MWs only and hence is under load as far as the agreed load of the consumers is concerned.
She further informed the House that about 94 Distribution Transformers were damaged in Pahalgam constituency during the current financial year out of which only one transformer is pending for repairs while all other transformers have been repaired and re-installed in the system.
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