Hameed angry at absence Of SC/STs, minorities on Google hangout

Hameed insisted on registering her protest even after Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Sam Pitroda gave their concluding remarks and vote of thanks

Planning Commission's attempt to reach out to netizens through Google Hangout ended on a sour note, with one of its members Syeda Hameed complaining about the absence of persons belonging to minority communities and SC/ST on the programme.     

"I want to say that this is a very elite medium, neither ...A scheduled caste nor a scheduled tribe, nor minorities and only one question came in about a challenge people facing...," news agency PTI reported quoting Hameed. She said all these towards the end the one-hour programme, in which deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia emphasised on the need for maintaining the supremacy of parliament in holding people's representative accountable.

Hameed insisted on registering her protest even after Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and National Innovation Council (NIC) Chairman Sam Pitroda gave their concluding remarks and vote of thanks. When other Commission officials hinted that the programme is over, she went to fellow Member Abhijit Sen and insisted on lodging her protest. "No we are still alive. Are we dead now?" she was heard saying, PTI said.

Earlier, responding to other questions Montek Singh Ahluwalia said that we should  not ignore Parliament as far as accountability is concerned. He also said that if the  steps listed in 12th five-year plan document are implemented that the shortage in power generation and power demand in the country could be resolved to a large extent by the time the 12th plan ends in 2016-17.

On meager allocation to states, other members of the Commission who were also present in the hangout said that the changes being brought about after the implementation of B K Chaturvedi Committee report on re-assessment of Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) will ensure that devolution to states would be much larger both financially and also in physical terms in the 12th five-year plan as compared to any other plan.

Meanwhile, the Commission will organize a 32-hours 'hackathon' in association with 12 major universities of the country on April 6 and 7. The event which would be a first of kind initiative by any government body will involve students, youngsters and others in preparing infotainment, story boards, mobile apps, erutainmaint etc on the various initiatives mentioned in the plan. "We have been working on this since that last 2-3 months and now it is almost formalised," a senior Planning Commission official said.

The Commission has also started making extensive use of social media platforms like facebook, twitter, YouTube, slide share flickr and Google plus for this purpose. The Commission's twitter account for activated few days back and so also its facebook page.