The four-day special session of Madhya Pradesh Assembly, convened to discuss issues linked with development, ended on Friday with the House unanimously passing a 70-point resolution moved by chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
What took away a large part of the impact of this session was the Congress-led boycott and a mock parallel session organised in public gaze by the Congress legislators and also allegations, counter-allegations and a series of privilege notices moved against some Congress MLAs accused of unparliamentary behaviour.
Concluding discussions in the House, Mr Chouhan told the House that the Citizen’s Charter Act would be passed during the coming monsoon session of the state Assembly. “Anyone responsible for misusing public money will not be spared. We are combating the scourge of corruption,” he said, adding even IAS officers facing charges of corruption have been suspended by his government. He further said that the state government will focus special attention on infrastructure building initiatives, besides developing the farm sector, women’s empowerment, law and order, children’s welfare and water conservation.
The chief minister announced that the state would soon have a sports authority, and a women’s development authority. He said that it is a matter of serious concern that there is tremendous pressure on agricultural land.
For the purpose of land acquisition, it has been decided to fix a minimum price of Rs 5 lakhs per acre or the prevailing market rate. In order to streamline the public distribution system, those in the BPL category would be given coupons and the ration shops would receive payments on the basis of these coupons.
To augment the police force, it has been decided to build a special battalion by recruiting ex-servicemen, he said adding that law and order would continue to receive special attention.
The chief minister said that the state-owned autonomous Laghu Udyog Nigam will soon be disbanded as it was allowing middlemen and those running their own rackets to operate freely and cause loss to the exchequer when it came to procurement by various government departments.