On the fifth day of the ongoing 12th session of the 11th Manipur Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, the house passed Demands for Grants amounting to a total of Rs, 525,16,60,000 (Five hundred twenty five crores, sixteen lakhs, sixty thousand). The Demand for Grants are Rs, 176,59,57,000 for State Legislature; Rs, 12,46,46,000 for Council of Ministers; Rs, 186,71, 96,000 for Secretariat; Rs, 32,33,39,000 for Transport; Rs, 38,40, 99,000 for Co-operation and Rs, 78,64, 23,000 for Relief and Disaster Management.
During the discussion for demand for grants, Chief Minister N. Biren Singh assured the house that a new regulated passengers’ fare of the public transport will be notified soon. The previous notification regarding the passengers’ fare will be reviewed in consultation with the concerned stakeholders, he also said.
Appealing to the public, Biren said that “we should adopt the habit of wearing helmets and should follow other traffic safety measures”. He added that the government has started campaigning for spreading awareness for mandatory use of such safety measures.
Responding to a cut motion by MLA O. Surjakumar, Transport Minister, Vungzagin Valte said that the process of registration of vehicles and application of driving licenses and other documents has been made ‘online’ for the convenience of the public. A Traffic Regulation and Parking Committee has been set up to monitor the criteria for owning a vehicle. Having said that, he also expressed concern that the department currently has 233 vacancies in various posts, and it will be able to carry out its responsibilities only when there are enough staff.
Regarding the current issue of traffic congestion in Manipur, the transport minister said that there are a total of 4, 53,732 vehicles currently registered at the department. Among this, 80% of the vehicles are plying at valley area, mainly at Imphal. This has remained as one of the major reasons of traffic congestion in the Imphal.
On the other hand, replying to a cut motion by MLA O Surjakumar, leader of the House who is also the minister for Relief and Disaster Management, N Biren Singh stated that the department played a significant role to combat the COVID pandemic since the very beginning. The State Disaster Rapid Force (SDRF) personnel were deployed to sensitive and hyper-sensitive zones and rendered their services when the state was facing a critical juncture due to the pandemic.
Earlier during the Question Hour, Education Minister S Rajen Singh, replying to a supplementary question from MLA O Surjakumar, said that for the successful implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), state task force and sub-task force has been constituted. There have been three sittings of the force so far and had discussed the feasibilities of NEP in the state. 120 posts of pre-primary teachers will be recruited to train children between the age of 3-6.
Clarifying regarding the opening of Integrated Teacher Education Programme (4 years Bed), Rajen informed the House that the said programme has been introduced already in five selected colleges in the first phase. As suggested by the NEP 2020, forty-five colleges of the state have been turned into multi-disciplinary colleges with the inclusion of various vocational courses.
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