Raipur, February 16, 2010
The crime graph in Sarguja region has increased. There have been back-to-back murder cases in the recent past and the professional killers from the other states are being hired for the purpose. In spite of this, the state government has failed to maintain law and order in the area. The allegation was leveled by the Congress MLA Premsai Tekam in the Vidhan Sabha during call attention.
He said that the ruling party had even failed to save its own partyworkers from becoming victim of the criminals. “On February 1, 2010, the Ambikapur’ s BJP leader Rajkumar Singh was killed by Jharkhand’s professional shooter Guddu aka Ranjeet Mahto owing to land related disputes. The local anti-social elements had hired Guddu and had paid him Rs one lakh to kill Singh,” said Tekam.
He alleged that the theft, murder and other criminal cases had increased in Sarguja belt.
Answering to Tekam’s allegations, Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar defended his government by saying that prompt action had been taken against the culprits. “Singh was actually killed owing to land dispute between his brother-in-law Rajratan and Guddu,” he said.
Kanwar informed Guddu was presently in police remand along with one of his aides Rajaram Verma. “Guddu’s another aide Sudhir Mahto is still decamping. Police are hopeful to elicit about Sudhir’s whereabouts very soon,” Kanwar said.
The minister claimed that the crime rate in Sarguja has decreased in the past two years. “As compared to 2008, the cases of theft, loot and murder have declined by 13%, 14% and 19 respectively in 2009,” he said.
Close BALCO for violating various Acts: Choubey
Raipur, February 16, 2010
Leader of the Opposition Ravindra Choubey has asked from the government to close the operations of the BALCO for violating several mandatory Acts. “It is surprising that in spite of knowing that the BALCO management is deliberately violating Labour Act, the government is refraining to take any stern action against the company’s management and the owner,” said Choubey during the question hour of Vidhan Sabha on Tuesday. Blaming the government for failing to maintain law and order in the state and for protecting law-breaking industries like BALCO, Choubey and the other Congress MLAs walked out from the House.
In his question, Choubey asked from Labour Minister Chandrashekhar Sahu whether his department had sent its officials to inspect BALCO in 2008 and 2009 (till December 20), number of officials in inspection teams and inspection dates? He further inquired whether the officials found any violation of labour laws during inspection and if yes then the type of action being taken against the management.
In the absence of Labour Minister, the answer was given by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Brijmohan Agrawal who informed that in 2008, labour inspector SR Amlivar visited BALCO nine times and conducted 55 inspections under Minimum Wages Act, Contract Labour Act and Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act. During this period, Amlivar found violation of Minimum Wages Act five times and Contract Labour Act once, Agrawal informed.
Similarly, in 2009, Amlivar visited BALCO 13 times and conducted 57 inspections under various Acts. During this period, he found the management accused of violating Contract Labour Act for nine times and Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act for 12 times.
Meanwhile, Congress MLA Mohammad Akbar asked about the names of the people against whom the accusation was filed for violation of various Acts, Agrawal informed that the charge sheet was filed against BALCO Chief Executive Gunjan Gupta, the company's project manager Viral Mehta, CEO of Chinese firm SEPCO Hau Zozin and five directors of Gannon Dunkerley and Company Ltd (GDCL).
When Choubey expressed his surprise that the government did not take action against the BALCO owner for non-compliance with various norms, Agrawal said the government was responsibly handing the issue.
Dissatisfied with Agrawal’s answers, Choubey announced walkout from the house along with Congress MLAs.
House adjourned till Feb 22
Raipur, February 16, 2010
Speaker Dharamlal Kaushik adjourned the House on Tuesday at about 3.30 pm till February 22. Notably, it was unanimously decided by the ruling party and the Opposition that the House proceeding would not be carried out on February 17, 18 and 19 considering the BJP’s three-day national executive that will be held at Indore. While, February 20 and 21 would be holiday being third Saturday and Sunday.
UPA responsible for inflation in country: Chandel
Raipur, February 16, 2010
BJP MLA Narayan Chandel has blamed the UPA government at Centre for price rise in the country. Initiating the debate over price rise of food materials in the Vidhan Sabha, Chandel said the commodity prices during the regime of Congress-led UPA government had increased by 4-5 times.
However before the commencement of debate, the ministers including Chief Minister Raman Singh leaved the House. Upset with indifferent attitude of the ministers, the Congress staged walkout from the House. Leader of the Opposition Ravindra Choubey was surprised that except a couple of representatives from BJP, none were present in the House during the debate. “If the responsible ministers are disinterested in taking part in the debate then what is the use of discussion?” expressing these words Choubey and his party’s MLAs walked out from the House.
Terming Opposition’s decision irresponsible, Chandel said the congress deliberately skipped the debate. “Similar is the attitude of UP government which had promised to bring down the rising prices in its mandate during Lok Sabha elections but has completely failed,” he said.
“It is an irony that that as compared to Chhattisgarh, the inflation has hit the Congress-ruled states like Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh more badly,” he added.
“The prices of diesel, petrol and several other commodities are usually being fixed by the government, but strangely during the recent chief ministers meeting at New Delhi, the Centre put all the blame on state governments,” he said.
Chandel also trained his guns towards Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar for giving irresponsible statements. “Pawar also not even spared the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and blamed him for rising prices,” Chandel said.
BJP MLA Deepak Kumar Patel said the Congress and inflation form either sides of the coin. On this the Congress MLA Dharmjeet Singh pointed out that the BJP MLAs had forgotten to mention the corruption and black marketing prevailed in the states which were key reasons for inflation.
Congress MLA Haridas Bhardwaj indicated that the state government had completely ignored agriculture sector owing to which the overall production rate declined sharply. “A large tract of land - about 3500 acres, including agricultural land, had been given to the industries. With reduced farmland, the production was bound to decrease and as a consequence the prices of the food grains hiked in the state,” he said.
He also pointed out towards corruption prevailed in paddy procurement process. “It is really surprising that the government has procured paddy more than the actual production and has kept its ears deaf in spite of knowing that the surplus amount of paddy is flowing from neighbouring states like Orissa and Maharashtra,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment