Chief minister Nitish Kumar at the Assembly on Thursday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, March 29: The Bihar Assembly today witnessed noisy scenes over the steep hike of fee by various private schools in the state.

JD(U) MLA Manjit Kumar Singh raised the issue through a call attention motion when he alleged that the private schools had hiked their fee by at least 40 per cent this year.

“There are some schools that are seeking over Rs 1 lakh as donation from parents for admission of their wards. The private schools are fleecing the parents,” he said.

The legislator added that the state government should bring a bill to regulate the fee structure of private schools in the state.

Despite the fact that a discussion is not allowed in a call attention motion, several NDA MLAs were on their feet seeking action against the private schools.

Speaker Udai Narayan Choudhary’s repeated requests to members to sit down in their respective chairs had little impact as the row continued for over five minute.

Congress leader and former speaker Sadanand Singh recalled that during his tenure, he had set up a House panel to look into the functioning of private schools in the state .

“The panel had suggested a way to control private schools,” he said, referring to the special House panel led by the then BJP MLA Navin Kishore Prasad Sinha.

The panel had made a detailed report on infrastructure, teaching faculty and other facilities provided by private schools and made recommendations to the government, Sinha added. However, the then government had ignored the suggestions.

Order in the House was finally restored after the speaker said he was with the sentiments of the legislators and would take a decision on the issue within a couple of days.

Urban development minister Prem Kumar was at the receiving end as Manjit Kumar Singh raised the issue of large-scale vacancies in Patna Municipal Corporation in supervisory grades.

Though the minister said he had ordered filling up of the vacancies within six moths by making appointments on a contract basis, he was unable to reply on how long the posts have been vacant.

BJP MLA Vikram Kuer created a din in the Assembly when he alleged that Siwan had become a centre for cattle smugglers.

Though animal and husbandry department minister Giriraj Singh said the district administration had taken action when it had seized two trucks full of cattle, Kuer maintained that cattle were being smuggled out of the state from Siwan in large numbers in connivance with the local police. He maintained that the government action to prevent cattle smuggling was inadequate.

In another question raised by the MLA, food and consumer protection minister Shyam Rajak defended the government’s decision to give 25kg of foodgrain to families as against the Centre’s guideline of providing them with 35kg of foodgrain.

He added that states such as Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha were not following the guidelines of the Union government.