Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 7: Members from ruling Congress and National Conference expressed their dismay over the fate of State Finance Commission and said that for the last more than two years now, some committee members were sitting over it.
The issue was raised in the State Legislative Council by the Congress member from Doda Naresh Kumar Gupta during Question Hour today. The members expressed his dismay and drew the attention of the entire House towards this important issue and maintained that former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had taken initiative in this direction with the objective to remove financial disparities in all the regions. But even after the two years of submitting report by the committee, Government was sleeping over the issue.
NC Member Sheikh Ghulam Rasool said the Government should clear that how much more time it will take to implement the recommendations. How much time the committee requires for examining the same, he asked?
While replying to the main question, Minister of State for Finance, Dr Manohar Lal said that State Finance Commission was constituted and mandated to make recommendations for ensuring equitable development of all the three regions in the State by equitable distribution of resources available for development and making good backlog of development and employment at the regional and the district levels.
Mr Lal said the Commission submitted its report on 30-11-2010 to the Chief Minister. The report comprising of five volumes already stands provided to each Legislator in June 2012 for information. The majority of the members however, denied having provided any such report to them and said that Minister’s claim was wrong.
Responding to yet another question, whether State Cabinet has approved or disapproved the observations / recommendations of the Finance Commission, the Minister said as per the Cabinet decision No. 178/22/2011, dated 30-9-2011, the recommendations of the State Finance Commission have to be examined by the committees to be constituted for the purpose in the concerned departments for implementation of the recommendations. As per the same Cabinet decision, after examining the recommendations, the departments are expected to submit their proposals with the approval of concerned Minister to a Group of Ministers, with Minister of Finance as chairman. The Group of Ministers have received the proposals from some of the departments and it is awaited from the few others. The Group of Ministers would make their recommendations to the Cabinet, when the proposals are received from all other departments. The member however, expressed his concern for the delay being caused and said it was unfortunate. NC member Sheikh Ghulam Rasool also raised supplementary.
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