Bharat Chandra Narah

Guwahati, July 17: Assam today took a step towards a bicameral legislature with the state Assembly unanimously adopting a resolution for setting up a Legislative Council or Upper House in the state.

Parliamentary affairs minister Bharat Chandra Narah moved the resolution to create a Legislative Council in the state and recommend to the Union government that Parliament be moved to make laws to the effect as required under the provisions of Article 169 of the Constitution.

Legislators cutting across party lines supported the resolution, which was passed by two-thirds majority.

The proposal for setting up the 42-member Legislative Council will be sent to the Centre seeking parliamentary approval.

Before the resolution was passed, AGP legislator Ramendra Narayan Kalita sought a clarification from the minister as to whether the council would become a place for rehabilitation of the politicians after an electoral defeat.

In his reply, Narah said the basic idea behind the creation of an Upper House is to offer representation to small ethnic groups, which were not represented in the state Assembly.

“It is our responsibility to give equal representation to all the indigenous communities of the state,” he said.

The Upper House cannot be more than one-third the total size of a Legislative Assembly. The proposed Upper House will have 42 members, as the total strength of the Legislative Assembly is 126.

The role of the proposed council is likely to be primarily consultative with limited legislative powers. The expenditure of the council has to be borne by the state government.

It had been a long-pending demand of various quarters, including political parties, about the need for a two-tier legislature in the state, considering the aspirations of diverse ethnic groups.

During the last Assembly elections, the ruling Congress also made an election pledge to create the Upper House if elected to power. The state Assembly had adopted a similar resolution in 2005, but the Centre returned the proposal, seeking some more details.

Chief minister Tarun Gogoi today told the Assembly that he is ready to recommend a CBI inquiry into all the departments of the Dima Hasao Autonomous Council and all the financial transactions of the council since 1996, as demanded by the Opposition.

Gogoi made the statement during a discussion in the House on the Rs 1,000-crore scam in the autonomous council. At present, the CBI is probing financial anomalies in five departments of the council. The Opposition is demanding that the ambit of the probe be widened, covering all the departments.

Assam food and civil supplies minister Nazrul Islam drew flak for not being able to check price rise of essentials in the state during a censure motion brought against him by the Opposition.

Islam maintained that the government is trying everything possible to contain price rise, which is a national phenomenon. He said regular monitoring is done to ensure that traders do not take undue advantage of the situation.

The house committee — constituted to study the impact on the downstream areas of the rivers in the state owing to construction of big dams for hydel power generation in the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh — submitted its report in the Assembly today.

The committee was of the opinion that no dam should be constructed without a proper comprehensive scientific study .