Thursday, 01 December 2022 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Assembly passes anti conversion, women reservation bills & supplementary budget
The winter session of the Uttarakhand Assembly was adjourned sine die by the speaker Ritu Khanduri on Wednesday evening. The Assembly passed the anti conversion bill and the bill to grant 30 per cent reservation given to the women of the State on the second day of the winter session of the Assembly on Wednesday.
Amid pandemonium and walkout by the members of Congress party, the supplementary budget Rs 5444.4291 crore was also passed by the Assembly for the remaining period of the current financial year. As soon as the proceedings of the day started, the Chakrata MLA Pritam Singh requested that the issue of unemployment should be taken by the house under rule 310. The speaker Ritu Khanduri however ordered that the issue would be taken later in the day under rule 58. Initiating discussion on the subject, the Leader of Opposition (LoP), Yashpal Arya said that ahead of the Vidhan Sabha elections in the State, the BJP promised that it would create employment opportunities and fill all the vacant posts in the government. He said that 28,622 posts in different departments of government are lying vacant at present. Arya said that successive recruitment scams have shattered the dreams of the unemployed of the State.
Terming the scam in the Uttarakhand Subordinate Services Selection Commission (UkSSSC) as the biggest scam of Uttarakhand, the LoP said that the Congress has demanded that the scam should be investigated by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) under a sitting judge of the High Court but the government has not accepted the demand which shows that its intention is not clear on the issue. Arya said that Hakam Singh who is being dubbed as a kingpin of the scam is a mere pawn. Participating in the debate, the Chakrata MLA Priram Singh compared the UKSSSC scam with the infamous Vyapam scam of Madhya Pradesh. He said that the blacklisted company was given the job of conducting the examination by the commission and its tenure was extended arbitrarily. He demanded that the protectors of the so-called kingpin of the scam should be exposed. The deputy leader of Congress Legislature Party (CLP) Bhuwan Kapdi termed the UKSSSC as a stain on the State. He carried some documents which he claimed were proof of corruption in recruitment. He alleged that poor advocacy resulted in a situation where many accused got bail from the court and now they are out of jail.
In his response the Parliamentary Affairs minister Prem Chand Agarwal said the government is making every possible effort to provide employment to the youth. He said that the government took stern and exemplary action on the irregularities in the recruitments. The government handed over the investigation of the UKSSSC examination paper leak case to the Special Task Force (STF) and arrests were made. He said that action against the Gangster Act was taken against 21 accused in the scam. The minister said the court too has rejected the demand of a CBI inquiry in the recruitment scam and added that the STF is doing a good work in the case.
Unsatisfied by the reply of the minister, the members of the Congress party raised ruckus in the house and staged a walkout in protest.
