Oppn walks out over closure of institutions

The legislators from the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) staged a walk-out on the fourth and final day of the winter session of the Himachal legislative assembly on Saturday amid discussion over the closure of hundreds of institutions by the Congress government during its tenure so far.

- Dar Ovais

DHARAMSHALA:

Chief minister (CM) Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, in a written response to a question asked by BJP legislator Randhir Sharma, said 1,865 institutions of various departments were denotified, merged, or closed by the Congress government, ensuing a heated debate over the issue, which the Opposition has been raking up in the past as well.

The government also revealed that it has opened 37 new institutions and notified 103 institutions during its tenure so far.

While Opposition legislators accused the Congress government of pick and choose in closing the institutions, Sukhu attacked the previous BJP government for opening hundreds of institutions without any need and only for electoral benefits. During the debate over the issue, BJP legislators walked out and speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania said the walk-out was uncalled for as ample time was given to the Opposition legislators to raise their concerns.

Among the institutions, which were either denotified, closed, or merged, 1,094 were of the elementary education department, followed by 257 of the health and family welfare department, 117 of the revenue department, 101 of the animal husbandry department, and 91 of the higher education department.

In reply to Randhir on the reasons for the closure of these institutions, the CM said hundreds of institutions opened by the previous BJP government were not need-based and many were opened only six months before the election in 2022. Even some schools were opened where there were no students. We surveyed these institutions and brought the matter to the cabinet.

"We opened only need-based institutions and we plan to open more institutions where there is need after taking into consideration various factors like population and geography," Sukhu said.

Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition (LoP) Jai Ram Thakur said, "It is surprising to see that over 1,800 institutions were closed, we earlier thought it was only around 1,000-1,200."