Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, who heads the State coordination committee constituted to run the Hemant Soren Government, will meet Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Thursday, pleading to increase the seats of Jharkhand State Assembly from 81 to 125-130.
"I have already written a letter to the Home Minister on this issue and will impress upon him to increase the seat limit at the earliest. States like Haryana, Kerala, Chhattisgarh and Assam have such number of seats in their respective assemblies. This low number of assembly seats is the major reason of political instability in Jharkhand," he pointed out.
According to Ramesh, the BJP which ruled Jharkhand in its formation years of statehood has done a blunder by maintaining only 81 seats in the State Assembly. The Union Minister said this after a review meeting with five Jharkhand state ministers of the Congress, including Mannan Mallik, Geetashree Oraon, Yogendra Sao, Chandrashekhar Dubey and Rajendra Singh on Tuesday.
During his meeting with Singh, who is in-charge of four departments — Health, Medical Education and Family Welfare, Energy, Finance along with Institutional Finance and Programme Implementation — it was decided that State Government will act on Coal India Chairman's announcement to invest Rs 1200 crores on improving health infrastructure of Jharkhand. Ramesh said that a proposal will soon be drafted between State Government and Coal India on this issue.
Ramesh was given a proposal by Ranchi's Archbishop on Tuesday to set up a 1000 bedded hospital, 100 seats medical college and 200 seats nursing college in the state on behalf of Catholic Bishop's Conference of India. He said, "The model of this medical college will be similar to St John's Medical College at Bangalore. We have assured the Bishop that the State Government will help in identifying a land within few months for this purpose."
Jharkhand is on top of malaria prone States in India. But, it is deprived of distribution of 150 'long lasting medicated mosquito nets' for the past two years to prevent this deadly disease.
He disclosed that the electricity supply through solar and Biogas energies to villages wherein grid electricity is not possible has been approved by the Central government. "Overall there are 750 villages where grid electric supply is unreachable. Jharkhand needs to send the Centre the proposal of 600 villages where solar or biogas electric supply is required," Ramesh said.
Ramesh assured to sanction the construction proposal of 2,000 kilometers village road of the State within two or three months.The State government has also decided to begin the immediate functioning of 300 bed hospitals made at Dumka, Hazaribagh and Palamau long time ago. Ramesh said that Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) has received Rs 130 crores for expansion which is to be done by January end.
With State HRD minister Geetashree Oraon he discussed on midday meal (MDM) and Primary education wherein the Centre's assistance is important. Mallik, Sao and Dubey briefed the union minister about their respective departments.