Smaller issues raise din in ‘shortest’ session

Chandigarh: The ongoing session of the Punjab assembly is not just one of the shortest; it has so far witnessed little discussions on major topical issues related to the state.

The opposition has, meanwhile, accused the Congress government of rushing through the three-day session with the schedule for the second day on Tuesday cut short.

Former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal reached the assembly at the start of the session but left after his son and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal arrived. During the call attention notice, Khaira raised the matter about Punjabi language on national highway signage. Health minister Brahm Mohindra reacted by pointing out that Khaira had made his point in English.

However, the Congress government assured the House that Punjabi language would be given priority on signboards on major highways. Mohindra blamed contractor for relegating names in Punjabi to the third place.

He told the House that there have been 14,128 confirmed dengue cases in the state so far with four deaths.

When H S Phoolka objected to the bills being given to the MLAs only in the House, depriving them of a chance to debate these properly, speaker Rana KP Singh asked the parliamentary affairs minister to submit the bills in time in future.

The issue of ill-equipped and short-staffed fire brigades in the state was discussed by the assembly. Local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu admitted that against a demand for 550 fire tenders as per the state's population, only 124 were presently available

AAP MLA Kanwar Sandhu demanded that the report of the SIT constituted by the police earlier on the drug issue be made public. He demanded that the names of all political people named in the SIT report be revealed.

On the matter of education in the border areas, education minister Aruna Chaudhary said a separate cadre of teachers would be formed for these areas to increase the number of teachers in the schools falling within these regions.