Ruckus in Assembly over allocation of funds to colleges

Shimla, Mar 14 (UNI) The Himachal Pradesh Assembly today witnessed heated exchanges between the ruling and opposition members over the issue of allocation of funds for the construction of buildings for newly opened colleges in the state.

The trouble arose after leader of the opposition Prem Kumar Dhumal pointed out that Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh had given a wrong figure in the House on Budget allocation for the construction of new-college buildings in the state, while replying to a question by Satpal Singh Satti (BJP).

Mr Dhumal said the chief minister had stated that the government had allocated Rs two crore each for the new colleges in the supplementary budget for 2006-2007 and Rs three crore each in the budget proposals for 2007-2008.

However, there was no such provision in the budget proposals and the money allocated in the budget for 2007-2008 was only Rs two crore for each college under the education head, he said.

Replying to this, the chief minister clarified that the government had earmarked a total sum of Rs 55 crore for the purpose and as promised a sum of Rs five crore would be spent on the construction of buildings for the new colleges opened in the state following which the BJP members started raising slogans against the state government.

The Congress members also started raising slogans against the BJP and nothing was audible in the House for the next few minutes, until the Speaker urged the members to take their seats.

The BJP members were particularly agitated as the Chief Minister, while replying to a question during the Question Hour earlier had dared BJP member Mohinder Singh Thakur, when he said that the budgetary allocation did not match with the details provided by him.

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