Oppn stages walkout over housing scheme

Raipur: Amidst noisy scenes, opposition BJP legislators staged a walkout in the Chhattisgarh Vidhan Sabha on Monday, accusing the government of depriving the poor of getting houses under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) by not contributing the state’s share for implementing the center sponsored scheme.Terming the reply of agriculture and panchayat minister Ravindra Choubey on the allocation of houses to the poor under PMAY as “unsatisfactory”, the opposition members raised slogans and staged a walkout from the house.

Opposition BJP member Shivratan Sharma sought to know the number of residences provided to the poor under the PMAY scheme. The members were not satisfied with the reply received from Choubey when he said that he was getting confused with the numbers because BJP MLAs quoted figures of 13 lakh or 16 lakh beneficiaries.Choubey also admitted that the government couldn’t contribute its share for the scheme, saying that it was because of the Covid-19 pandemic situation.Stating that the minister was trying to mislead the house and trying to politicise the issue, the BJP members protested and staged a walkout.Later during zero hours, the BJP members tried to corner the food and civil supplies minister Amarjeet Bhagat by raising the issue of alleged misappropriation in stock of rice and other food materials allocated to PDS outlets across the state through a notice for adjournment motion.Raising the issue, former chief minister Raman Singh alleged that the minister in the government had accepted the irregularity worth Rs 149 crore took place in the scheme and recovery of only Rs 4 crore was made. He also termed that it was a unique case of corruption as records showed huge quantities of rice stocked in small ration shops.Mounting the attack, MLA Brijmohan Agrawal alleged that apart from rice, the misappropriation took place in supply of sugar, salt, pea and other materials allocated for poor under PDS scheme. The details about sugar, salt, pea and others are not available in the web portal, said Agrawal.Minister Amarjeet Bhagat interrupted the opposition members and argued over the issue. As the notice for adjournment motion was disallowed, the opposition members created pandemonium alleging it as a Rs 1000 crore corruption, forcing an adjournment of the house.