- Sat, 31 Jul, 2010, 2:52 am -

Ranchi: The heat of the steadily rising mercury was felt in the air conditioned comfort of the Assembly Hall. Legislators were worried that the deteriorating Power & water situation in the State would only nose dive in the coming days. They cornered the treasury bench on these matters in the first session today. The helplessness of the Energy minister was apparent as he shied away from any direct answer but ended up giving only more assurances. The Speaker C. P. Singh too expressed his concern on the unkempt conditions of transformers, faulty wiring and neglected leakages in the water pipe lines.

Raghubar Das had just one answer for these querries. He assured the House that the situation would be fully under control from April onwards as the tenders for the transformer wires have been invited. The maintenance work would be carried out meticulously to ensure smooth service. In reply to a question by Legislator Anant Pratap Dev, the minister Chandra Prakash Choudhary assured the House that the incomplete the water distribution system to Garwah District’s Ramuna, Silidag, Mudvania and Mandohar would be completed by this November itself.

Jagannathpur MLA Geeta Koda raised the question of starting the water distribution from Mongra River and requested the minister not to give ‘tariq pe tariq’ (dates after date as promises) but to initiate the work in earnest. The House burst into laughter on the former CM’s wife’s remarks.

To all the questions related to the water distribution from MLAs S S Bokhta, Nirbhay Kumar Shahbadi and Anant Pratap Dev assured them that the pending work would be completed by June.

JMM’s Teklal Mahto wanted to know from the minister whether the people of Vishnu Garh in Hazaribagh District be able to drink water this summer as the project of Vishunagarh Water Supply was lying in abeyance for the past 10years. The minister assured him that the problem would be sorted out at the earliest. Menaka Sardar raised the issue of supplying pure drinking water to the Housing colony in Baghbera in Jamshedpur while Videsh Singh raised the question for Lesliganj in Palamu.

14 questions left in lurch as minister skips House

The Deputy CM and minister in charge of 5 ministries Sudesh Mahto remained absent from the House and as a result 14 questions related to Road Construction, Urban Development, Panchayati Raj, Building Construction and Rural Development were left in a lurch. JVM’s Pradeep Yadav took a strong exception to it and demanded a reply to all the questions from the other Dy. CM Raghubar Das. The Speaker intervened and fixed 10th of March for inclusion of today’s questions. The date of Panchayat Elections was on the question list.