Unheard over its demand to set up a “House Committee” to investigate whether poor families in the State are getting sugar and kerosene oil at subsidised rates, the Opposition Congress on Wednesday staged a walk out in protest.
Congress accused the State Government of not providing subsidies on sugar and kerosene to the poor in the State.
The issue was raised during the question hour on the third day of the ongoing monsoon session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha. Congress legislative Party (ClP) Sunil Kumar Jakhar claimed that 4.86 lakh poor families in the state have not get sugar at subsidised rates while 10 lakh have not received subsidy on kerosene oil.
Even as Food and Civil Supplies Minister Adesh Partap Singh Kairon made every possible effort to pacify the Congress MlAs by replying to their query in detail, the opposition members jumped into the well of the House and raised anti-government slogans before trooping out from the assembly.
Kairon contended that private mills are not giving sugar levy since past many years and when the government acted against them they approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court. He also mentioned the name of Congress MlA Rana Gurjit Singh, who also owns a sugar mill that infuriated the Congress MlAs.
Things went awry when the leader of Opposition Jakhar sought to know from the government whether the Centre is providing sugar and kerosene oil at subsidised rates to the poor of the state. Jakhar also urged the Speaker Charanjit Atwal to set up a House Committee to carry out an inquiry to check his claims that lakhs of poor families are devoid of subsidies on sugar and kerosene.
“Take any district, except Bathinda…to check my claims…make a house committee and a conduct a probe into this,” Jakhar demanded from the Speaker — which he downrightly denied.
WIll REGUlATE SUGAR DISTRIBUTION: KAIRON
Maintaining that the state government has got “enforcement powers” after the Centre amended its policies on Punjab’s request, the minister in-charge Kairon said that the sugar distribution will soon be “regulated”.
Kairon, in his reply to Jakhar’s query, said that the Centre had amended its policy on subsidies to enable regular distribution on subsidised sugar on Punjab government’s request. “The state government had asked the Centre to allocate a reasonable quota of sugar so that it could be distributed at subsidised rates to poor,” he said.
“We were issued a quota of 7,000 tonnes of sugar by the Centre as per which we can distribute only 100 grams of sugar to each family and it’s a mockery...We approached the Centre with a fresh proposal...Now, we are in a position to give sugar at subsidised rates to poor,” Kairon said. He added that the number of poor families in the state had rose from 4.5 lakh to 33 lakh recently.
On kerosene subsidies, Kairon said that they were given only to those who don’t have a lPG connection. “To get subsidy on kerosene, one will have to surrender his lPG connection...We have given subsidy to 53 lakh families,” he said in the absence of the Congress MlAs who had staged a walkout.
KAIRON URGES MlAs TO FOREGO GAS SUBSIDY
Supporting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to forego gas subsidy, the state Food and Civil Supplies Minister has urged all the MlAs for the same.
“Subsidy is meant for poor...I want to circulate a form among MlAs declaring to forego the gas subsidy…all MlAs must give an undertaking not to avail subsidy as a gesture...Some 6.5 lakh families are not getting subsidy on kerosene as their bank accounts are not linked with Aadhar,” said Kairon.
Intervening, independent MlA Balwinder Singh Bains asked Kairon to adhere to the question asked and reply to the same rather than asking legislators to give undertaking not to avail subsidy.
“We have already given up subsidy,” Bains said while alleging that the Food and Civil Supplies Department is the “most corrupt” in the state.
GOVT TO ‘ADJUST’ TDS ‘WRONGlY DEDUCTED’ FROM FARMERS’ COMPENSATION
Congress MlA Jagmohan Singh Kang staged a brief sit-in in the well of the House when the state government wavered to make time bound the adjustment of TDS amount, “wrongly deducted” from the compensation given to farmers for their agriculture land acquired by the government for the construction of Kurali bypass in Mohali.
Kang pointed at the “incorrect” deduction of TDS from the compensation while citing IT rules, which was also accepted by the Minister concerned Janmeja Singh Sekhon.
Sekhon admitted the discrepancies in deduction of TDS from compensation being given to the farmers for agriculture land. “There is no tax on the agriculture land…there has been a mistake by our department and the amount thus collected will soon be adjusted,” declard Sekhon, the PWD Minister.
Amidst the protest by the Congress MlAs, Sekhon assured the assembly that the Revenue Department will soon remove the anomalies in deduction of TDS. Even as the Congress MlAs demanded to make it time bound, leader of the House and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal assured them, “As per the procedure, I will do my best and ask the revenue department to rectify the fault as soon as possible.”
ISSUE OF SCHOlARSHIPS TO SC STUDENTS ROCKS HOUSE
A day before the Congress is all set to move a privilege motion against the state Welfare Minister Gulzar Singh Ranike for misleading the House on the issue of payment of scholarships to the SC students in the state, the issue rocked the assembly.
The issue was raised by Congress MlA Charanjit Singh Channi while calling the government’s attention towards “non-payment of scholarships to the students of Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes community in the state”.
Even as the minister in-charge read out year-wise figures of the scholarships distributed among the SC students, displeased Channi questioned Ranike about the previous year’s remaining amount alleging misappropriation of funds by the government. Jakhar also charged Ranike of misleading the House.
Intervening, Finance Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa said that the state government could release the amount as and when it received funds from the Centre as it was centrally sponsored scheme.
On this, the Speaker asked Dhindsa “what will be the benefit of scholarships if a student gets it after he had already passed a course”. Speaker urged him to release the scholarships when the entitled student is pursuing his study.
SPEAKER SNUBS VAlTOHA
Chief Parliamentary Secretary (CPS) and SAD MlA Virsa Singh Valtoha was virtually snubbed by the Atwal for yelling at Congress MlA Charanjit Singh Channi when he was raising the issue of plight of State-owned roadways buses and their employees.
As Channi pointed that state owned roadways was running into losses for giving profit to the Badal owned buses, Valtoha intervened. Enraged, Speaker asked if Valtoha always have to question the opposition members. When Valtoha refused to calm down, Speaker charged him of “challenging the chair” to which the former replied “no I am not”.