Orissa Assembly adjourned over snag in audio system

Bhubaneswar,Jul 02(UNI) A malfunctioning in audio system in the Orissa Assembly today triggered resentment among the members leading to disruption of the business and adjournment of the House soon after the question hour.

It all started during the question hour when Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was replying to questions raised by the members.

Several members alleged that they were not able to hear the Chief Minister.

But the members prefeered to waitetill the question hour ended to raise the issue as they did not want to disrupt the question hour business.

During the zero hour, Congress member Jayadev Jena, rising on a point of order, drew Speaker Maheswar Mohanty's attention to the non-functioning of the microphones.

He said it would be difficult for the members to participate in the business of the House when one did not know what the others were saying.

Members cutting across party lines, complained of the poor audio system inside the well and demanded that the problems in the microphones should be attended to first before taking any further business of the House.

Speaker Maheswar Mohanty requested the members to wait till the lunch so that the fault in the system would be repaired during the lunch break but the Opposition continued to create noisy scenes over the issue.

Congress Deputy leader Narshingha Mishra asked the Speaker to adjourn the House for 30 minutes and restore the audio system inside the House. The Speaker conceded the demand and adjourned the House for 30 minutes. The House assembled after the adjournment but Deputy Speaker Prahallad Dora again adjourned the House till 1500 hours.

The Assembly secretariat then immediately summoned the concerned authority to attend to the fault in the audio system. The house resumed business during the post lunch session after the defects in the microphones were attended to and the audio system was restored.

UNI