Assembly session likely to be extended by 2 days
It is more than likely that the budget session of the Telangana Legislative Assembly will be extended by two more days. The House is expected to meet on March 28 and 29 to pass Panchayat Raj and Municipal Administration Bills.
Hyderabad: It is more than likely that the budget session of the Telangana Legislative Assembly will be extended by two more days. The House is expected to meet on March 28 and 29 to pass Panchayat Raj and Municipal Administration Bills.
- Extension being sought to pass PR Bill
Earlier, the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Assembly decided to continue the sessions till March 27. However, the government is proposing to extend the duration by two more days for the passage of the Bills.
The BAC of the Assembly would meet on March 27 and would take a decision on the extension of the session. The Chief Minister is likely to hold a meeting of the Cabinet on Monday or Tuesday for adopting the Panchayat Raj Bill.
The government has proposed changes in the present Panchayat Raj Act and decided to bring in a new law. It has proposed to introduce the Bill in the budget session so that the panchayats to be formed after the elections in August would work according to the new Act.
The PR Bill proposes several changes in the existing Act. It has been proposed to change the system of election of sarpanches to gram panchayats, doing away with the MPTC tier, giving more powers to the panchayats, turning the tribal thandas into panchayats, establishment of mandal and district-level committees to give permission to construction of houses with more than two floors, more powers to sarpanches, fixing responsibilities of the sarpanches and others.
The new Act should come into force by end of March so that the State Election Commission could conduct the elections to the zilla parishads, mandal parishads and gram panchayats in May this year. As a result, the bill has to be passed in this session and the government wants to ensure that the bill is cleared by the end of this month. Though there is still one day left on March 27, the Assembly has to pass the Appropriation Bill and no other business would be possible on that day.
The government has proposed to amend the Municipal Administration Act to facilitate creation of new municipalities in a hassle-free manner. The present Act says that the resolution of the gram sabha in favour of converting the panchayat into municipality is necessary.
The government wants to amend this clause and do away with the resolution of the gram sabha for converting a village or cluster of villages into municipality. It has become difficult for the government to convert some villages, which have grown in area, population and in revenue into municipalities and the decisions of converting some villages into municipalities are facing legal problems.
