Zila Parishad’s quarterly meeting a damp squib

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, April 20

The quarterly meeting of the Zila Parishad convened here on Thursday under the supervision of its chairman failed to be productive as out of the 77 agenda items pertaining to various departments as many as 54 items remained unanswered.

In response to these 54 items pertaining to various departments like the HRTC, the IPH, the HP State Electricity Board Limited, PWD, Health, State Pollution Control Board, Revenue, Forest, BSNL, Education, the BBNDA and Food and Civil Supplies officials failed to respond to the queries raised by various members.

Some agenda items pertaining to the problems of the villagers like lack of proper roads, buses, potable water, hand pumps, power supply and the issues related to pollution have figured in successive meetings of the Zila Parishad for years. The officials concerned, have, however, failed to furnish any information.

An illustration of this point was a question raised by the Zila Parishad Chairman himself in 2011 pertaining to the presence of effluent treatment plants in industrial units of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh and about the number of water samples drawn by the officials of the State Pollution Control Board from Sirsa river near the truck union office. This question has not been answered till date. Instead, a written reply furnished by the board official states that cases from January 16, 2018 to January 19, 2018, were before the NGT through an NGO.

The reply, a copy of which was available with The Tribune, was not just a mockery of the question raised by the Chairman but showed lack of seriousness shown by the board officials in addressing pollution related issues.

The board officials have failed to attend successive meetings of the Zila Parishad. Despite issuance of notices by the ZP Chairman it has failed to elicit any response from them.

Abject lack of seriousness shown by the officials has reduced this key pillar of the panchayati raj institution to a toothless body which despite having budget worth crores can’t pursue development works in rural area.