Karnataka - Shimoga   

Congress, JD(S) stage noisy protest

MONTHLY MEETING: The Shimoga Zilla Panchayat in session on Thursday.

SHIMOGA: Members of the Congress and the Janata Dal (S) staged a noisy demonstration at the monthly meeting of the Shimoga Zilla Panchayat here on Thursday complaining that they were being insulted by not being invited to people’s contact programmes which was a clear case of protocol lapse.

The members raised the issue even as the house began its proceedings urging the administration to see that such things were not allowed to happen in future.

President of the zilla panchayat Chandra Kumar and Chief Executive Officer V. Anbukumar promised the agitated members that they would ask the taluk-level officers to follow protocol strictly.

The restrictions imposed by Deputy Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey on protest demonstrations on his office premises came in for sharp criticism by the members.

They said it was a matter of concern that people would have to go to jail if they staged a demonstration within the office premises to seek justice.

“This situation is reminiscent of the days of Emergency,” they said.

A member alleged that the Deputy Commissioner was helpless in the matter as he had to abide by the order of the Chief Minister who appeared to have asked him to avoid protest demonstrations on his office premises.

A member, Shantaveera Naik, drew the attention of the members when he alleged that a large-scale scandal had taken place in the programme to remove silt in public tanks. He said that the officers concerned were misleading the district administration by providing wrong information.

He said that there was a violation of law in the transfer of tanks coming under the purview of the zilla panchayat to the Minor Irrigation Department and criticised the decision on handing over such tanks to the department.

Mr. Naik questioned the propriety in taking up development of tanks coming under the jurisdiction of the zilla panchayat by the department. He said that it had made the engineering section of the zilla panchayat irrelevant.

B.R. Jayanth, who joined issue, suggested that the tanks coming under jurisdiction of the zilla panchayat should be listed as many of them had been encroached upon.

Executive engineer of Minor Irrigation Department said that while the public tanks were under the control of the Deputy Commissioner, their maintenance had been entrusted to gram panchayats. He said that the development of tanks was being taken up at the instruction of Cabinet sub-committee.

Mr. Naik brought the issue of chemical fertilizers and pesticides being stocked to the notice of the meeting. He alleged that artificial scarcity had been created with government officials colluding with fertilizer dealers.

He said that fertilizers were being sold at a premium of Rs. 500 a tonne over the recommended prices which had caused inconvenience to farmers.

K. Ashokmurthy suggested that cooperative societies should be allowed to make direct purchase of fertilizers from companies to avoid irregularities in distribution.

Mr. Chandra Kumar said that he would convene a meeting of the representatives of the Cooperative Marketing Federation, dealers of fertilizers and officials of the Agriculture Department in 15 days to sort out the problem.

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