Controversial issue of inclusion of 184 villages in and around Ranchi under the newly unveiled Master Plan 2037 put the Assembly on boil on Tuesday. The Opposition members questioned the exercise and termed it in contravention with the Constitutional provisions meant for the Scheduled areas putting Government in a tight spot.
JMM members Ravindra Nath Mahto and Deepak Birua debated the issue at length with Urban Development Minister CP Singh when the former brought the issue under Calling Attention Motion.
Birua was of the view that since Ranchi, besides 13 other districts of the State falls under the Schedule V and VI of the Constitution and thus enjoy certain privileges, no altercation into it can be done without the consent of Parliament followed by a gazette notification by the President.
Replying to this, CP Singh said that 77 villages out of the 184 had already been included under the RMC jurisdiction, the rest have been taken under Bihar Regional Development Act, 1984 which is being currently followed by the RRDA.
“The Master Plan for Ranchi has been made keeping in mind civic amenities to the people and regulation of the area near Ranchi where widespread unauthorised colonies are propping up. 77 villages were already under RMC and we have incorporated another 107 to regulate urbanisation activities there. Those have no longer remained villages,” said the Minister defending the Plan.
Nevertheless, the JMM members questioned the authority of the Government to de-notify the villages falling under the Schedule V, VI without having any Act like PESA, brought to regulate villages falling under the areas.
When the stalemate continued, Speaker Dinesh Oraon sent the matter to the Calling Attention Committee of the Assembly which would revert with its report within 7 days. Notably, villagers coming in large numbers had staged a massive protest in Ranchi opposing the Master Plan-2037 passed by the Cabinet recently.
A similar tug of war was seen on PTPS-NTPC agreement to form a joint venture company for the revival of ailing Patratu thermal power plant. Bringing a Private Member Bill, JVM’s Pradeep Yadav refused to withdraw it alleging corruption.
“The deal between the power distribution company of Jharkhand and NTPC is against the interests of the State and violates even the Electricity Act. Huge undervaluation of the assets with the PTPS has been done and the company, instead of getting revived from its own sources, is being surrendered to the NTPC cheaply,” said Yadav, pushing his Bill demanding scraping the deal.
However, the Government was not ready to buy the argument. “PTPS has 6300 acres of land with it out of which only 1800 acres in two phases would be given to NTPC. In return, the State would be getting over 80 per cent of power generated from the 4000 MW plant coming up for which the Centre has also consented to. The deal is in the interest of the State and the Government under no circumstances would scrap it,” retorted CP Singh.
Rare scene followed thereafter when repeated requests from the Speaker to take the Bill back had no bearing on Pradeep Yadav. left with no choice, the Speaker put it for voice vote and the Bill got defeated by majority from treasury benches.