Autumn Assembly session: Govt will ensure House functions properly, says CM

Srinagar, Sep 16: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday said the upcoming seven-day Assembly session will see several issues concerning the people of Jammu and Kashmir being raised, with the government making every effort to ensure the House functions properly and legislators receive satisfactory responses.
Speaking with reporters on the sidelines of a function here, Omar said that the Assembly session would have both government legislative business and issues raised by MLAs from the Treasury and Opposition benches.
“There are two types of agendas in the session. One is the government’s own business, legislative. That is less in the Union Territory than in the state, but still, there is some legislative business which will be presented to the House by the government,” he said.
He said MLAs, irrespective of whether they belong to the Treasury or Opposition benches, would get an opportunity to raise questions concerning their respective areas and the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
“Some bills and resolutions come, and the government tries to answer these things. It is a seven-day session. Many issues will be brought to the House,” Omar said.
The CM added that the government would try to run the House properly and ensure that legislators receive satisfactory responses to the issues raised by them.
Asked about reports of charges being imposed on UPI payments, the Chief Minister said such charges would not apply to everyone, adding that person-to-person money transfers would not attract a charge. “First of all, there is no charge on the person-to-person money transfer. After that, there will be no charge on individual consumers until you cross a ceiling,” he said.
Abdullah said operating the UPI system involved significant costs, but suggested that the Government of India should avoid imposing charges on ordinary people. “As far as I understand, running this UPI system is not cheap. It takes a lot of money to run it. And the truth is that we do not appreciate what we get for free,” he said.
“The Government of India should try not to impose charges on the common people. If there is a charge on a company, I have no objection to it because the company earns better than the UPI anyway,” he added.
On the issue of water bodies, CM Abdullah said the problem is not new and called it a legacy issue that could not be resolved overnight. “This is not a problem of the last two years. This is a legacy issue. We will not be able to deal with it overnight. But we are working on it,” he said.
The Chief Minister said the government is working through different schemes to address the issue and protect water bodies. “We are working on different schemes, whether it is in Saski or other schemes. We are trying to not only save our water bodies, but also increase them,” he said. (KNO)