SHILLONG: The State Assembly on Wednesday passed the controversial amended Lokayukta Bill, 2013 without any discussion contrary to the assurance given by Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma during the last session.
From the Opposition, only the GNC member Clifford Marak questioned Government’s intention to pass the Bill in a hurry.
According to Marak, sufficient time was not given to discuss the amended Bill.
However, the Speaker AT Mondal said that no amendment was brought by the Opposition after the Bill was introduced in the House on October 4 with certain amendments.
Government had brought only cosmetic changes to the amended Bill when it was introduced in the House last Friday.
The Chief Minister did not fulfill his assurance made during the last April session that sufficient time would be given for further deliberation on the Bill by the members.
Other Bills: The Assembly also passed the Meghalaya Appropriation (No.III) Bill,2013 which allows withdrawal of over Rs 99.93 crore from the consolidated fund of Meghalaya.
Other Bills passed by the House include Meghalaya Maintenance of Public Order (Amendment) Bill 2013, Criminal Laws (Meghalaya Amendment) Bill,2013, Poison (Meghalaya Amendment) Bill , Meghalaya Private Universities (Amendment) Bill 2013 and Meghalaya Co-operative Societies Bill.
Govt mulls new power metering system : Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma has said Government is contemplating over introducing smart metering system to calculate the consumption of power by the consumers.
“There have always been complaints about the delay in the issuing of the electricity bills by the MeECL. But now the bills would be automatically generated with the introduction of this metering system,” Dr Sangma said while replying to a supplementary by Mairang legislator Metbah Lyngdoh in the Assembly on Wednesday.
While the problem of delay in issuing of bills would be permanently resolved, he said that the metering system would also bring down the losses generally incurred by the MeECL.
