Haryana government limits ministers’ assembly responses to 50 words

New Delhi: The Haryana government has issued new guidelines for its ministers to answer questions raised by MLAs in the state assembly. According to the guidelines, the ministers should draft their answers in Hindi, the language they usually use to respond, and keep them within 50 words. If the answer is longer, it should be given as a statement on the table of the House.

The opposition parties have slammed this move as an attempt to evade accountability and transparency. They have said that the ministers should give detailed and satisfactory answers to the questions asked by the MLAs, who represent the people’s interests. They have also questioned the logic of limiting the answers to 50 words when the questions are allowed to be 150 words long.

The guidelines were issued by Haryana Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal to all administrative secretaries of the state government for preparing replies to be given by their respective ministers in the assembly. The guidelines also state that the answers should avoid tabular figures, columns, rows, or graphs/ bar diagrams unless attached to a statement laid on the table of the House.

The guidelines further state that the notepad should be divided into four parts. The first part should include the content of the answers in Hindi and the second part in English. The third part should contain background notes, and the fourth part should include possible supplementary questions and their drafts.

The guidelines also specify that many questions are in two parts, where the first part pertains to whether a particular work or project has been decided by the government. Subsequently, the second part asks for details if the answer to the first part is affirmative. In cases where the answer is negative, the response can be formulated by combining both parts and simply stating “No, sir/ma’am”.

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The opposition MLAs have termed the guidelines as unreasonable and impractical. They have said that the Question Hour during assembly sessions is one of the most important aspects after the budget where members from the opposition get an opportunity to seek replies from the treasury benches on issues about their constituencies.

Bharat Bhushan Batra, Congress MLA from Rohtak and chief whip of the party said that the government wants to make Question Hour a “mere formality” by limiting the replies read out by ministers in the House to just 50 words. Neeraj Shar