Bhubaneswar: Speaker Pradip Kumar Amat Saturday adjourned the House sine die amid stiff opposition. The Winter Session of Odisha Assembly which commenced November 16 was scheduled to conclude December 15.
The Assembly functioned only for four days during the Winter Session before it was adjourned Saturday, 18 days ahead.
The Speaker announced early closure of the winter session after accepting a motion moved by Chief Whip Amar Prasad Satpathy. Satpathy said the government feels early adjournment of the House would be appropriate as there was no pending official business to transact.
The House was disrupted due to uproar on the issue of farmers, felling of trees for a brewery in Dhenkanal, utilisation of the Tribal Development Fund, minimum support price of paddy and slashing of post-matric scholarship for the ST students by the Centre.
The House received 374 starred question notices, 550 unstarred while the government laid down answers to 683 unstarred questions before the House.
During the session, the House adopted a resolution for keeping 33 per cent reservation for women in state assemblies and Parliament.
Interestingly, the conduct of the House business including Question Hour and Zero Hour Saturday, which was virtually the concluding day of the winter session, was peaceful and without hassles.
MLAs Naba Kishore Das, KV Singh Deo, Narasingha Mishra raised questions on measures being taken by the Tourism Department to set up new hotels in various parts of the state. The members also raised questions about the steps taken by the state to promote tourism in areas beyond the state Capital.
Responding to some of the concerns raised by the MLAs, Tourism Minister Ashok Panda blamed Union Government for creating hurdles for the state as it has not been “clearing state proposals”.
“We sent Detailed Project Reports (DPR) to boost the tourism infrastructure of several places under Swadesh Darshan besides requesting the Centre to incorporate Odisha in the Buddhist Circuit. However, the Union Culture Ministry did not respond to our proposals and we could not proceed further,” Panda said.
However when the minister was countered by the BJP legislator citing delays on the part of Odisha in sending the DPRs against the deadline announced by the Centre, Panda agreed the delay on the part of the state and said, “For making DPRs, it takes time.”
During the Zero Hour, several members, LoP Narasingha Mishra and BJP leader KV Singh Deo demanded setting up of a High Court bench in Western Odisha.
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