Puducherry Assembly Speaker V Vaithilingam today read out the contents of the messagethe Lt Governor Kiran Bedi had sent to him on January 13 containing her appeal to the members to deliberate on some of the critical issues of Puducherry in the Assembly.
After the Chief Minister V Narayanasamy laid on the table of the Housecopies of certain notifications of the government when the House resumed sitting today the Speaker announced that he had a messagefrom the Lt Governor requesting the members to deliberate on "some of the critical issues of the Union Territory on the floor of the House by holding the session for adequate duration".
She also listed the issues the House could deliberate for the betterment of the people of the Union Territory.
Bedi said that the budgetof the Union Territory for the current year (2016-2017) is about Rs 6,665 crores. Sixty per cent of the budget amount is met by internal resources, 28 per cent by Central assistance and the balance 12 per cent by market borrowings or negotiated loans.
Bedi stated that "while we seek the Centre's intervention to absorb the legacy loan we should reduce our dependence on external borrowings and loans by raising internal resources".
She suggested that one of the important resources that can be tapped will be collection of service charges and user charges on civic amenities like sewerage charge, water charge, municipal taxes etc.
Referring to the investment Puducherry Administration had made in state run public sector undertakings she said that the administration had invested Rs 700 crores in its undertakings and societies.
She said that "we should discuss on the ways and means to recover the invesments made in the State run public sector undertakings and societies", Kiran Bedi stated.
Asserting that the living conditions of people in rural areas should be improved to prevent migration to town and cities in search of employment, education and health facilities here, she said that "the onus of taking care of rural population now lies with the elected members of the Legislative Assembly", she said.
Expressing her concern over only 51 per cent of the households in the Union Territory are having individual toilets she said in her message that open defecation continues to be a great challenge to publichealth here.
While Puducherry government had already committed itself to get declared open defecation free status by October this year unstinted cooperation of all elected representatives is essentially required to achieve the target, she said.
The House adjourned sine die today after having session for two days since yesterday.
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