Nitish Demands Declaration Of Financial Emergency In Bihar

Samata Party leader Nitish Kumar yesterday demanded that a financial emergency be declared in Bihar following the finding of the Comptroller and Auditor General that constitutional obligations had been flouted in the state governments statement of accounts for the year 1995-96. He told the Lok Sabha during zero hour that the state government could thereafter be dismissed, on the ground that the constitutional machinery had broken down since the government had flouted articles 204 and 205 of the Consititution. Kumars demand was vocally supported by BJP members from Bihar and as loudly opposed by the treaury benches. Scams: A whopping Rs 10,200 crore was involved in seven major scams which came to light between 1992 and 1996 in the country, including Rs 9,130.75 crore in the bank securities scam, the Lok Sabha was told .A total of 183 cases were registered in the seven scams besides one case relating to allotment of petrol pump and gas agencies, minister of state for personnel S R Balasubramoniyan said.

Power estimates: The estimated energy requirement and peak demand based on the 15 electric power survey committee report during the year 2001-2002 was 570 billion units and 95757 mw respectively, the Lok Sabha was informed.

Farm workers: The government will bring forward in Parliament next month a comprehensive bill for the benefit of agricultural workers, labour minister M Arunachalam informed the Lok Sabha.

CBI: Over 1600 cases, including 207 cases referred by the Supreme Court and high courts, were pending with the CBI for investigation as on February one, 1997, Balasubramoniyan said. Replying to another question, he said the Centre had permitted the CBI to initiate investigtions in 35 cases between 1994 and 1996 against bureaucrats on charges of corruption.

NHRC: The government is considering recommendations by the national human rights commission relating to measures to prevent government servents from employing children below 14 years age as domestic servants, Balasubramoniyan said.

Nuclear station: A proposal to commission a detailed project report for light water reactor stations at Kudan-kulam in Tamil Nadu with Russian technical and financial assistance is being negotiated, the Lok Sabha was told.

LPG: Subsidy on domestic LPG (packed) during the current fiscal year is estimated at Rs 1950 crore, minister of state for petroleum T R Baalu said.

GDP: Contribution of agriculture sector at 24.6 per cent in indias gross domestic product (GDP) during the eighth plan period is way behind services sector at 42.2 and industry at 33.2 per cent, the House was told.

Rajya Sabha

Security scam: M P Veerendra Kumar, minister of state for finance, yesterday assured the Rajya Sabha the government will make sure that no one involved in the share scam will be allowed to get out of the net of law.

He was making his maiden intervention after becoming a minister recently. The Rajya Sabha later passed The Special Courts (trail of offences relating to transaction in securities) amendment bill, 1977. The Industrial Reconstruction Bank( transfer of undertaking and repeal) bill was introduced in the upper house. Both these bills have been passed by the Lok Sabha. They are meant to replace ordinances issued by the government earlier. Ramdas Agarwal of BJP put up a stiff resistance on the Industrial Reconstruction Bank bill, saying that the government move to turn it into an equivalant of other financial institutions will hurt the interest of sick industrial units.

Doctors: Senior marxist member Ashok Mitra expressed serious concern in the Rajya Sabha over the reported US government order asking as many as 65,000 Indian doctors to leave the country.

Courier: The government will consider having a separate law for the regulation of private couriers in the country and efforts are on improve the efficiency of the postal services in the country, the Rajya Sabha was informed.

LCA: The indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA) is in advanced stages of system integration and production could start even before the targetted period of 2002 AD, defence minister Mulayam Singh Yadav told the Rajya Sabha.