AP Budget Session Concludes

It was a name sake Assembly session today with the exception of a series of bills passed with breakneck speed, amidst protests registered by the whole of opposition legislators.

By and large the opposition had a field day pushing the Treasury Benches to the wall over various issues, most notable among them being a resolution on Telangana by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the demand of a Joint Legislative Committee probe by the main opposition.

Demonstrators displaying placards in the Well of the House, slogan-shouting, stampedes, and fist-fights marked the current session headed by Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy who had barely completed a hundred days in office.

Strangely, some of his own party legislators owing allegiance to former Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy’s son, Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, proved counterproductive to the ruling party.

Another first time feature was a section of Congress MLAs going against the Government Whip issued in the recent MLC elections from the MLA quota.

Never before was the state Assembly conducted so badly as the recent one which incurred huge loss and wastage of time without transacting the actual business, and without a full-fledged Speaker of the House.

The recently concluded budget session, which was held for over 40 days, did nothing in terms of finding any solution to public grievances, nor did it function effectively with regular business proceedings. It was a sheer waste of tax payers’ money.

Not a day passed without abrupt and frequent adjournments paving the way for bedlam, with the entire opposition cornering the Treasury Benches over the issue of constitution of a Joint Legislature Committee to enquire into the surreptitious land allocations to the business associates of Kadapa leader Y S Jaganmohan Reddy in the city.

The cited issue almost rocked the daily sessions, stalling the scheduled business like Question Hour, Zero Hour and a regular debate on key issues. By design, the Chief Minister agreed to form a House Committee on the concluding day of the session just to satisfy the opposition leaders.

The highlight of the session was the tabling of CAG findings which stated that the state suffered a whopping Rs. 35,000 crores loss due to corrupt practices.

Jalayagnam, which was the brain child of former Chief Minister YSR, gave room for high level corruption leading to incomplete projects and misappropriation of public funds, the CAG pointed out.

Due to inordinate delay in the ongoing construction of 206 irrigation projects, the state incurred losses to the extent of Rs. 2525 crores. This was because of the cost escalation, leaving the state government additionally burdened.