The Treasury bench was left red-faced by its own MlA from Kedarnath - Shailarani Rawat - during the debate of Budget 2016-17 on Wednesday, a day after Ramnagar MlA Amrita Rawat had embarrassed it by raising unpalatable questions on the functioning of the health department.
Seemingly gloating over the Treasury bench’s discomfiture, the Opposition appealed to the Deputy Speaker Anusuya Prasad Maikhuri, who was presiding over the House for the first time in the absence of the Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal who had left the House to attend a meeting convened by the Chief Minister, to give extra time to Shailarani.
Tearing into the State Government, the Kedarnath MlA said she was being left out in the cold whenever the administration called a meeting to discuss things about the 2013 disaster-ravaged areas. “The MlA being kept at bay when the Kedarnath reconstruction is being discussed about bodes ill for the area,” she said.
Dwelling on the devastation the disaster had wreaked on Kedarnath in 2013, she said the canal had been destroyed too. “Earlier, the people eked out living through horticulture. But now, they are leaving villages with the wild animals straying into them,” she said. She appealed to the State Horticulture Minister Harak Singh Rawat to keep fourth of the Budget to provide a security cover to the villages from the grim menace of wild animals stalking around. “Spending `1 lakh on horticulture is not enough,” she said.
Debunking the Government’s claim of providing relief to the calamity-affected, she targeted the tourism minister Dinesh Dhanai, saying that they had not done anything for the hoteliers based in Kedarnath. “Bearing the weight of the bank loans, they are having their backs broken,” she said.
Amrita Rawat again launched an attack on the Government for the second day on Wednesday, saying that despite CM assuring to allocate funds for the construction of Ramagnar bus stand during the Gairsain session of the Assembly, no fund had been allocated so far.
“While I was a cabinet minister I had got the Centre approve `8 crore for the creation of Seeta ki safari in Ramnagar. After the Centre released `1.60 crore I had got the work of the bus stand started. However, now things are bleak. The State Government said they are diverting the budget to the development of Kausani-Someshwar for tourism, citing forest department’s objection,” she said.
Barring the exception of Sarita Arya and Rekha Arya who sounded appreciative of the Budget, almost all the speakers who addressed the House on Wednesday, slammed the Budget as anti-development. BJP MlA Chufal said that in the CM’s home constituency, three jhoola bridges, washed away in disaster 2013, were yet to be restored. “They did not find a mention in the Budget,” he said.
He also said that the State Government having given lease to mining of Kali river that marks the boundary of India and Nepal has given away land to Nepal.