After UP, `gifted' Jharkhand MLAs to get laptops

After UP, `gifted' Jharkhand MLAs to get laptops
MANOJ PRASAD

RANCHI, MARCH 30: The Uttar Pradesh Government may have decided not to give its legislators a state-sponsored laptop computer after the Allahabad High Court stayed the move but the Jharkhand Assembly is bound by no such order.

Jharkhand Speaker Inder Singh Namdhari, therefore, is all set to give all 82 MLAs a laptop each. In a bid to bring about ``e-governance'' in the state, Namdhari, himself an engineer from Dhanbad, has been working toward purchasing the laptops for about Rs 2 crore.

Asked where the money would come from, a senior IAS officer said: ``From the government exchequer.'' To do this, Namdhari plans to bring a Bill in the House permitting the use of the fund meant for the Assembly to purchase the laptops. The computers are likely to be handed over to the legislators on Saturday itself.

In fact, Jharkhand legislators have received several such gifts in the past couple of months. On March 2, during the budget session, all the MLAs got a watch each. Ten days later, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ramachandra Kesri gave out a suitcase each. Just eight days later, Science and Technology Minister doled out an office bag and a pen worth Rs 250 each not only to MLAs but also to journalists covering the Assembly. All these gifts were paid for by the state, with no budgetary provision having been made for this, and evoked widespread criticism.

CPI-ML MLA Mahendra Singh -- who had refused to take these gifts -- is bitterly critical of the trend. ``In the age of information technology, a laptop is fine. But by fiddling around with public money without making budgetary provision for them, the government is institutionalising financial anarchy in the new state,'' he said.