During the upcoming Winter session of the Vidhan Sabha in Gairsain from December 7, the Congress will raise questions on various issues including the expansion of area under urban local bodies, condition of protesting Government primary school teachers, unemployment, state of public distribution system and the law and order situation in the State. Further, the Opposition will not attend the Assembly’s business advisory committee meeting unless the State Government acknowledges that an error had been made in the calling of business advisory committee meeting on the previous occasion. The leader of opposition in the Vidhan Sabha and Haldwani MlA Indira Hridayesh said this while addressing the media here on Thursday.
Speaking at a Press conference, Hridayesh said, “With the winter session of the assembly in Gairsain set to start in a few days, there are various issues on which the Government needs to provide an answer.
The biggest issue is the expansion of area under various urban local bodies in the state. We have been asking the Government whether the UlBs have enough staff for maintaining sanitation in the existing area. Are the health services in order in the areas set to be brought under the purview of UlBsIJ At a time when the cities have already been affected by unplanned construction, we strongly oppose this plan of the government to turn villages into concrete jungles as the government doesn’t have any developmental road-map in hand. In the Panchayat areas set to be brought under the purview of UlBs, there are some elected members who still have more than a year of their term left. We want to know under which law does the State Government plan to terminate the tenure of the elected public representatives. We have made it clear that in case the government does not provide a satisfactory explanation, we will not hesitate to approach the High Court and even the Supreme Court on this issue. Apart from this, we are also supporting the Government primary school teachers who are protesting as they have been told to undergo a bridge course.
According to the Intermediate Act applicable in Uttarakhand, those with 10 years of teaching experience are considered trained, so if the government wants them to undergo bridge training, the same can also be facilitated while they are working. The protesting teachers are planning to gherao the Vidhan Sabha in Gairsain and I have assured them that even if they court voluntary arrests in protest, the Congress party and its workers will support them.”
Citing data procured from district magistrates, she said that there are about eight lakh registered unemployed persons in the state. She questioned what the Central and State Governments had done to facilitate employment generation in the state as promised. Regarding the law and order situation in Uttarakhand, Hridayesh said that hardly 10 per cent of the registered crime cases were being solved by the police.
The State Government had not been able to strengthen the local intelligence unit and investigative mechanism of the police. lambasting the Central and State Governments, she said that the cuts made in rations provided under the public distribution system had hit the common folk hard. Ration woes coupled with steep rise in prices of vegetables are causing hardships for the public in the State.
She further said that the Congress strongly condemns the state Government for failing to implement the lokayukta Act in Uttarakhand. The State Government has not brought a proper transfer policy and has not been able to tackle the collapse of the health services, she added.