By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 19 Feb: The Budget Session of the Uttarakhand Assembly has been convened from 26 February and will continue till 1 March. As indicated already by Garhwal Post, the session will be held in Dehradun. For this, all the preparations are being done on war footing at the Assembly Secretariat level. The Assembly Secretariat has received more than 250 questions from the MLAs for the session. Answers to questions have been sought by the Secretariat from the departments concerned.
Since this is the first session of the current year, it will begin with the customary address by Governor Lt General Gurmit Singh (Retd) on the first day, when nothing else is expected to be in the business agenda of the House. This leaves just four days of regular sitting of the House.
The assembly sessions of the state assembly have been getting shorter each year. Ideally, there should be at least 90 days of sittings every year and at least 3 sessions. However, the average number of days of most state assemblies has been sharply declining since the nineties. In Uttarakhand, the assembly has had a sitting of only 17 days every year since 2011 on average. This year, a two-day special session was held earlier this month but it was basically the continuation of last’s year’s monsoon session, as it was not prorogued.
The budget session was initially planned to be convened in the summer capital, Gairsain. But several (as many as 44 in a house of 70) MLAs from the ruling party and the opposition had written a letter to the Speaker to convene the session in Dehradun instead, due to severe cold prevailing in the hills. During the recently held cabinet meeting, it was decided to convene the budget session in Dehradun.
According to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prem Chand Aggarwal, the Governor’s address will be held on the first day of the Assembly budget session, i.e., on 26 February. After this, a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee will be held and the further agenda will be decided. He added that the coming budget for the upcoming financial year 2024-25 will be a gender budget, which will increase development activities. He stated that the budget has been prepared keeping in mind all sections people and after taking suggestions from many people. The Parliamentary Affairs Minister claimed that Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami’s vision is that, by the year 2025, Uttarakhand can be included in the category of leading states of the country. This budget would prove to be a step in that direction.
