The budget session of the Telangana Legislative Assembly, which commenced with the Governor's address to the joint sitting of the Legislature on Friday, will have another 13 days’ sitting with March 27 as the last day of the session.
Duration of the budget session was decided at the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) meeting held after the Governor’s address. It is understood that the Government did not concede to the demand of some Opposition parties to continue the session at least till March 30 so as to enable discussion on all the issues of important to people, even as the ruling party leaders claimed later that the Government was ready to hold the session till all issues of importance were debated threadbare.
According to the decisions taken at the meeting, the discussion on the motion of thanks to the Governor’s address would be taken up and completed on Saturday itself in the afternoon session. Question Hour and Zero Hour on March 11 have been cancelled to facilitate discussion on the Governor’s address from the beginning of the day’s proceedings.
Sources stated that apart from the debate, the agenda for Saturday would only include tabling the copy of the report of the BAC meeting and presentation of the report of the Committee on Estimates.
Chaired by Speaker S. Madhusudana Chary and Deputy Speaker M. Padma Devender Reddy, the BAC meeting was attended by K. Jana Reddy and G. Chinna Reddy from the Congress, Akbaruddin Owaisi (AIMIM), G. Kishan Reddy (BJP), S. Venkata Veeraiah (TDP) and S. Rajaiah (CPI-M).
However, Leader of the House and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao did not attend the meeting as the Government was represented by Legislative Affairs Minister T. Harish Rao, Ministers K. Srihari, E. Rajender and P. Srinivas Reddy.
It is understood that Mr. Kishan Reddy brought the issue of functioning of House Committees to the Speaker’s notice suggesting that the Government hold meetings and submit report in time and also appoint other committees such as the panel on wildlife protection.
Whenever a party asked for extending the session beyond March 27, the Government representatives looked at their friendly-party representative and refused extension.
