Amidst vociferous demands of the Opposition to remove the Chief Secretary as well as the DGP, Governor Droupadi Murmu, in her address to the Assembly on the inaugural day of the Budget session, counted on the development story unfolded in Jharkhand by the present Government.
She underlined the steps taken in the direction of women empowerment and girl child protection, cleanliness drives, skill mission, digitalisation as indications of inclusive growth in the State.
The Governor amid continuous disruptions coming from the Opposition bench also laid down some future programmes of the over three-year-old Government before the members.
“My Government while working on the dreams of the Deendayal Upadhayay set up programmes and policies that ensure empowerment of the last person of the society. Since its formation the Government has adopted the mantra of ‘sabka sath sabka vikas’ in order to reduce unemployment and bring primitive tribes, backward, dalits into the mainstream,” said the Governor. Along with citing the works done in the field of social development, the Governor also underlined works done for industrial and financial growth by promoting investment, building right atmosphere and steps taken for ease of doing business. She referred to three ground breaking ceremonies having taken place since the Momentum Jharkhand was oranised in February, 2017. “The Government has organised ground breaking ceremonies in Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Bokaro with all basic infrastructure for the entrepreneurs after the Momentum Jharkhand where investment in the tune of Rs 6669 crore along with 49097 direct jobs were created. Mining show as well as Global Mines and Mineral Summit was also organised successfully in which more than 60 national and international companies participated,” mentioned the Governor.
She also mentioned about transparency adopted by the Government in the field of mineral block auctions and allotment of mining leases and named successful auctioning of four blocks of gold and limestone at East Singhbhum and Ramgarh while the process for one of graphite at Palamu and one of iron ore at West Singhbhum is on. Spending done in the tune of Rs 1200 crore under CSR for education, health and skill development was also noted by the Governor.
The address also talked about total electrification goal set for December 2018 under the ‘Saubhagya’ scheme and installation of rooftop solar power plants on 1400 Government buildings in the State. The Governor also read out the steps taken in the direction of self employment through production of milk, egg, fish, honey and different household items by women SHGs. However, the Opposition parties, which were in no mood to endorse what was being said by the Governor from the beginning despite Speaker Dinesh Oraon requesting them not to do so in his inaugural address, jumped off their feet as soon as she mentioned about anti-naxal activities of the Government. The speech put it on record that 12 Naxals had, in 34 different operations, been killed during 2017 apart from arresting 558 others. leader of Opposition Hemant Soren and other members of the JMM along with JVM’s Pradeep Yadav objected to the statement while referring to the alleged fake encounter at Bakoria. They together chanted slogans demanding removal of DGP DK Pandey.
The members, at the same time, also continuously kept pressing for the head of Chief Secretary Rajbala Verma for her non-cooperation in the Fodder Scam cases.
Interestingly, both the officials along with Additional Chief Secretary Amit Khare and Principal Secretary of the Personnel Department Nidhi Khare were present together in the officers’ box when the proceeding was on.