Legislations primary task but Assembly gets just 20 private bills from 83 MLAs

Legislators cite pending bills, Govt attitude

Bills on wages, regularization, Transfer Policy submitted

Sanjeev Pargal

JAMMU, Aug 31: Though making legislations remain primary task of the Legislature, very limited MLAs have submitted private members' bills for upcoming autumn session of the Assembly, beginning September 21 in Srinagar.

Every MLA, totaling 83 in the House of 90, were eligible for submitting one private members' bill in the Assembly by August 25, as per the a bulletin issued by the Legislative Assembly Secretariat. There are six Ministers including the Chief Minister and the Speaker in the House.

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However, as per the available data, only 20 legislators have seized the opportunity to submit one private members' bill each while 63 others have not exercise their right.

As many as 49 private members’ bills are pending from budget session.

Most of the MLAs irrespective of their party affiliations, when approached by the Excelsior for comments, observed that the private members' bills either don't figure in the House for introduction or are defeated if they press for their introduction.

"Look at the budget session held in Jammu between February to April in two parts this year. There were over 70 private members' bills. Two days had been reserved for them by the Legislative Assembly Secretariat during which roughly 20-25 bills were taken up and only one or two were allowed for introduction including one from ruling party legislator Tanvir Sadiq pertaining to allowing renewal of lease of Government land,'' one of the MLAs said, adding other bills were defeated at the stage of introduction.

Some other legislators have not given new bills in anticipation that their bills pending in budget session will be carried forward to the autumn session.

However, Assembly Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather has decided that all left-out private members' bills of the budget session will be listed in the autumn session.

Among 20-odd private members' bills submitted by the legislators for autumn session, five to six each have been given by two major political parties-National Conference and BJP while rest have been given by the smaller parties and Independents.

Through his private members' bill, BJP MLA Pawan Gupta has sought regularization of all daily wagers who have completed seven years of services while his party colleague RS Pathania has sought implementation of minimum wages for all categories of employees and automatic regularization of all daily wagers after completion of their seven years in service.

Five-time MLA MY Tarigami (CPM) has given a private bill seeking implementation of comprehensive Transfer Policy for all Government employees in Jammu and Kashmir.

"There should be no reckless and pick and choose transfers. Rights of the Government employees should be protected. This is mandatory for good governance,'' Tarigami's bill stated.

NC’s Nazir Gurezi Sajjad Shaheen, Farooq Shah and Salman Sagar, Congress MLA Nizam-ud-Din Bhat and PDP’s Waheed Parra among others have also submitted private members’ bills.

BJP’s Dr Narinder Singh and Sunil Bhardwaj have also given the bills.

While the Legislative Assembly Speaker is yet to come out with calendar listing business for autumn session of the House, the chances are that there could be seven to eight sittings of the Legislature. The session may last around 10 days.

However, the Assembly Secretariat is awaiting details of the Government business before finalizing the calendar.

There have been reports that the Government could bring certain significant bills during upcoming session of the Legislature.

Sources said the significant bills on Ease of Doing Business, drug menace and others are under consideration of the Government for introduction in the Legislature.

The Ease of Doing Business Ordinance was placed before the Cabinet in its meeting held on August 4 in Srinagar under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah but was deferred as some Ministers wanted presentation from the concerned department.