Shimla: The opposition BJP members continued their boycott of the Himachal Pradesh assembly for the fourth day in a row on Wednesday and did not come to the house.
The participation of BJP members in the proceedings of the house since the Budget session commenced on February 3 is "nil" as they either disrupted the house, staged walk out or boycotted the house and did not even took part in the Question hour.
The BJP members set a precedent by boycotting the Budget speech and discussion on budget and also disrupted the Governor`s address by raising slogans and did not participate in discussions on the motion of thanks on Governor`s address.
Health and Family welfare minister Kaul Singh Thakur today made a fresh appeal to opposition BJP members to attend the house and participate in the proceedings.
Speaking in the assembly in the absence of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh he said that participation of BJP in various discussions was essence of parliamentary democracy and issues raised by the opposition encouraged the government to work better.
Maintaining that the government had talked thrice to BJP members to end the deadlock but they were adamant, Thakur said that "I again appeal to them on behalf of the house to come to the house from Monday", hoping that BJP members would attend the house after the rally of Narendra at Sujanpur on February 16.
Earlier replying to a question during question hour, Thakur informed the house that a policy has been formulated by the government to give two biswa (90 sq yards) and 3 biswa (135 sq yards) to poor houseless families in the state in Urban and rural areas but no timeframe has been fixed to implement the policy.
The land would be given from the surplus land available in the government pool in various districts and by acquiring additional land in peripheral areas in the towns.
The land would be allotted by deputy commissioners on the basis of guidelines fixed by the government, he told Maheshwar Singh (HLP) in reply to his question.
Poor families with annual income below Rs 50,000 would be eligible for allotment of land which would be muted in the name of both husband and wife and would be non-transferable.
Those who have been allotted land under any scheme of the government or got proprietary rights under Tenancy and Land Reform Act would be ineligible.
The minister told Rajender Singh (Independent) that only six out of 88 Tehsildars in the state have been provided official vehicles and the remaining ones are without a vehicle.
He said that the Tehsildars are performing multifarious field duties in tough hilly terrain with modest means of transportation and government was contemplating to give them vehicles in a phased manner subject to availability of funds.
