Mubashir Aalam Wani
Srinagar, Feb 10 :
Cutting across party lines, legislators on Monday pushed for constituency-based permanent allocation of residential quarters to them in Srinagar and Jammu cities.
Sources told news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that members of a House Committee today advocated that the government should identify residential quarters in both the UT capitals and designate them permanently as residential quarters for MLAs. “We have suggested constituency-based allocation. As per the suggestion, a residential quarter should be allotted to a particular constituency rather than an individual MLA,” National Conference MLA Javaid Hassan Baig and member of the panel, told KNO.
He said the proposal would rationalize the allocation of residential quarters for MLAs.
“The MLAs are running from pillar to post to get residential quarters. If this proposal is implemented, they would be free from the burden of finding accommodation,” he said.
He said they have also pushed for building of residential colonies, where a similar arrangement of allocation should be made.
“There was a unanimous view that MLAs would themselves decide about their entitlements. The House will take a call on our entitlements,” he said.
The meeting was chaired by Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather and attended by Sunil Kumar Sharma (BJP) Ghulam Ahmad Mir (Congress), Nazir Gurezi (NC), Surjeet Singh Slathia (BJP), Ali Mohammad Dar (NC), Javid Hassan Baig (NC), Choudhary Mohammad Akram (Independent) and Waheed–Ur-Rehman Para (PDP)—(KNO)