Puducherry Assembly adjourned sine die

Puducherry: The Puducherry Assembly which began its budget session (2013-2014) on July 15 adjourned sine die on Tuesday after a 10 day sitting.

The session was marked by presentation of the Rs 5,890 crore budget by Chief Minister N Rangasamy on the opening day of the session. The House passed the Appropriation Bill 2013 yesterday. After transacting business scheduled for today, Speaker V Sabapathy adjourned the House sine die. Earlier Rangasamy while replying to views of opposition members during the debate on the private member`s resolution brought in by A M H Nazeem (DMK) that while pressing for statehood, he would would not compromise on the demand to include four regions- Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam-should together become a state. Nazeem said government should insist that the Centre include Puducherry in the Finance Commission as one of the constituent states so that Puducherry would be able to get a certain percentage of revenue the Centre mobilized from here. He said government should also persuade the Centre to sanction a five year moratorium on repayment of Rs 5609 crore loans due from Puducherry to the Centre over the years. He contended that payment of interest for this accumulated loan touched Rs crore a day. In his reply, Rangasamy said it was only for all and multifarious advantages he had been insisting on statehood. All the four regions would be within the framework of State and there would be no room for any different views, he said. Opposition Congress legislator Malladi Krishna Rao said neither statehood nor statehood with special category status would be helpful for Puducherry. Another Congress member E Valsaraj suggested that before persuading the Centre for grant of statehood,Rangasamy should head a legislators team to Goa for an on the spot assessment of the situation there after it became a state. M Purushothaman (AIADMK) sought to know why Congress was taking a `tottering stand by earlier pitching for statehood and demanding statehood with special category status. After Rangasamy`s reply, Nazim did not insist on his private member resolution. Chief Minister told V Vaithilingam and K Lakshminarayanan (both Congress) that steps would be taken to bring in necessary scheme for welfare of advocates and to extend financial aid to them. PTI