BANGALORE: Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Krishna has criticised officials for their indifference towards the legislature, and said the Government has failed to ensure that they submit performance budget reports sought by the House.

Earlier, Minister for Home Affairs M.P. Prakash admitted that heads of departments had failed to submit the reports to members before discussions on demands for grants.

No information

The issue came up on Tuesday when S.S. Patil (Congress) brought to the notice of the Speaker that no department, except the Education Department, had given the reports to members. He said they could not speak about issues in the absence of information. The House should put off discussions till the reports were received, he added.

Direction

Mr. Prakash, who agreed with him, asked Chief Secretary B.K. Das to make arrangements for submission of the reports.

Mr. Patil complained that replies to questions received from members of the Legislative Council had been given to members of the Assembly. Leader of Opposition N. Dharam Singh suggested that the debate on the demands be taken up after a few days.

Monitoring

The Speaker said he had asked Mr. Das to monitor the functioning of various departments and ensure that they submitted "performance budget" reports and made available other information sought by the House. He said officials, including the Chief Secretary, were not taking action on his orders; they seemed to have taken the House for granted. Their attitude would bring down the dignity and decorum of the House, he said. He directed officials to make the reports available immediately.

G.V. Srirama Reddy (Communist Party of India-Marxist) accused the Government of not having control over officials.

Middlemen

The Speaker pulled up the Government when D.R. Patil (Congress) said the Government had failed to protect farmers from middlemen. Mr. Krishna asked it to take action against inefficient officials if it had the will to do so.

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