By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 23 Aug: Some important decisions are likely to be taken in the Cabinet Meeting that has been scheduled for 11 a.m. at the Secretariat, tomorrow. Amongst the proposals likely to be placed before the cabinet also include one to summon the Monsoon Session of the State Legislative Assembly.
It may be recalled that the last assembly session had been held in the Summer Capital, Gairsain, in the month of March. In September, it will be a six months gap between the two sessions. In order to ensure the continuity of the state assembly, there should be a gap of less than 6 months between the two sessions and, hence, it has become necessary to summon the next session in early September as per the legal mandate in this respect. This is besides the point that some important legislations, including the financial bills related to the Supplementary Demands are on the government’s agenda. Sources claimed that a proposal of the Legislative Department to convene the monsoon session from 6 to 12 September is likely to be placed before the cabinet. It is another matter that the duration of the sessions has become very short in the past few years. In fact, some of the sessions in recent years have been just two days long. The sessions are summoned for at least a week, but they usually get over in two to four days.
Besides this, a number of other proposals are likely to be placed before the Cabinet, tomorrow, including on subjects related to education, health, revenue, forest and other departments. One proposal expected to be submitted before the cabinet is granting the principals of the schools the right to hire teachers on per period basis wherever vacancies exist and there are none appointed. This proposal may be brought in the interest of the students, who suffer because there is no teacher available to teach them some subjects in many government and aided schools.
Apart from this, discussions can be held on the reports to be placed in the Vidhan Sabha and proposals for ordinances and bills.
The first five months of the financial year, 2023-24, will be over by the end of August and, by the time the session is held in September, it will the sixth month of the financial year 2023-24 and, therefore, there will be a need for some departments to bring up supplementary demands. While the departments have already been asked by the Finance Department to submit their proposals for the supplementary demands, the preparations for a supplementary budget are already underway in the Department. A discussion on this is also likely to be held in the Cabinet meeting scheduled for tomorrow.
