The Hindu : Kerala News : Not entirely a futile exercise

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Saturday, Jul 03, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Not entirely a futile exercise

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JULY 2. The tendency of the Government to reject every law enactment proposal brought by MLAs in their private capacity became a subject for discussion in the State Assembly today.

During all sessions of the House, Fridays are exclusively set apart for `Private Members' Business'. There are several members in the present Assembly who take pains in preparing Bills proposing new enactments for people's welfare or regional development needs. However, when they seek leave to introduce their Bills, the Government politely declines them permission to do so.

In some cases, the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, M. M. Hassan, whose lot it is to handle the `private members' Bills', explains why such and such proposal is considered impractical or unnecessary by the Government. In certain other cases, he would explain the Government's own plan to introduce a similar Bill `in the near future'.

Among nearly a dozen private Bills that came up before the House today was one proposing the constitution of a `Hill Area Development Authority' prepared by the Congress MLA, K.C. Joseph. Declining permission to introduce it, Mr. Hassan said the Government had already made an allocation in this year's Budget for such an authority and a Bill for enacting the law governing the proposed agency would be officially introduced in the House shortly. Under these circumstances, he asked Mr. Joseph not to press for introducing the subject as a `private members' Bill'.

The senior Congress MLA, Aryadan Mohammed, intervened at this stage to ask the House whether it was not wasting an entire day's business each Friday by going through the futile exercise of the members bringing new proposals only to get a `no' from the Government. He said that, at least in the case of the proposals acceptable to the Government, the Bills concerned should be subjected to a clause-to-clause discussion. Members had brought hundreds of Bills to the House in their private capacity during the history of the State legislature, but the only time one had been accepted and made an enactment was in 1957, Mr. Mohammed said.

Mr. Hassan responded by stating that it was wrong to say that the whole exercise was a futile one. "As all of us know, when a member comes up with a private Bill, he is also drawing the Government's attention to a particular issue. Several private Bills in the past had inspired the Government to do the spadework on the subject and come up with official Bills for new enactments," he said.

He further stated that the Hill Area Development Authority would come into being during the current year itself.

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