Making space in Parliament: DMK MP advises Naidu to use Central Hall

Bungalow politics

Kamal Nath, Congress leader and former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, is expected to vacate the official residence of the chief minister — 6, Shyamla Hills, Bhopal — even before the lockdown is over. According to sources, Nath will move to the bungalow where he used to live before becoming a chief minister. Just a few days ago, the state government started sealing the bungalows of former ministers of the previous (Nath) regime. They had been issued notices to vacate the premises, but they did not respond. A former minister termed the government’s action “a violation of the central government’s directives on lockdown”. The Kamal Nath government had spent more than Rs 38 crore to renovate the official bungalows of the ministers.

Making space in Parliament

There is uncertainty whether the monsoon session of Parliament can be held on schedule. The session usually begins in the third week of July and lasts a month. The concerns are over social distancing since MPs sit close to one another in the two Houses. In this context, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) Rajya Sabha MP Tiruchi Siva has written to Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu, offering a solution to the problem. Siva has suggested that the Lok Sabha could meet in the spacious Central Hall and the Rajya Sabha could be convened where the Lok Sabha sits. The Central Hall is spacious enough to accommodate nearly 800, and the Lok Sabha has 543 members, while the Rajya Sabha 245.

FIRs against sanitiser makers

This is a problem many states are grappling with. The sudden spurt in demand for hand sanitisers to ward off the Covid-19 virus has led to the mushrooming of production units across the country over the past two months. The manufacturing capacity of the product in Uttar Pradesh alone has touched 300,000 litres per day. Most of the new units in the state manufacture ethanol-based sanitisers since ethanol, which is a sugarcane by-product, is available in bulk in the state. But the quality churned out by a majority of these units is questionable. Now, the state’s Food Safety and Drug Administration Department has directed drug inspectors to identify such units and take penal action. Already, the department has lodged a first information report against six manufacturing plants, located in Deoria, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Ghaziabad, Prayagraj, and Farrukhabad.