Haryana Assembly Speaker Harvinder Kalyan announced on Friday that the state government and the Vidhan Sabha secretariat are actively examining various solutions to accommodate an increased number of legislators following the upcoming delimitation exercise.
New Assembly Building Plans in Limbo
Kalyan made these remarks during a media briefing on the recently concluded winter session. His statement comes in the wake of media reports suggesting that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has advised Haryana officials to shelve plans for constructing a new Assembly building in Chandigarh.
This proposal for a new building was originally initiated in 2022 by the then Speaker, Gian Chand Gupta. The state government had pursued the matter vigorously, discussing it at various administrative levels. Former Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, along with Gupta, had even identified and finalized a 10-acre plot of land on the stretch from Railway Light Point to the IT Park road.
Furthermore, the Haryana government, through the Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP), had secured a prime piece of land on the Panchkula-Chandigarh border. This land was intended to be exchanged for the originally allotted site, indicating advanced stages of planning.
Productive Winter Session Highlights
Shifting focus to the assembly's recent work, Speaker Kalyan described the winter session as highly beneficial. The session, which spanned three days with four sittings, saw a total of 23 hours and 45 minutes of proceedings, with work productivity reportedly exceeding 100 percent.
All 74 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) participated in the session. A significant amount of work was accomplished, including the passage of 16 bills and detailed discussions on various public-centric issues. Topics of national importance, such as electoral reforms and the Vande Mataram, were also debated.
Detailed Breakdown of Proceedings
The Zero Hour was particularly active, extending over three days for a total of 3 hours and 18 minutes. Participation was broad-based:
- 33 Congress MLAs spoke for 94 minutes.
- 32 BJP MLAs presented their views for 91 minutes.
- 2 INLD members contributed for 6 minutes.
- 3 independent MLAs spoke for 7 minutes.
The session also attracted considerable public interest. A total of 1,058 visitors witnessed the proceedings from the galleries. This group included 588 students, 201 guests in the Speaker's Gallery, and 269 in the visitors' gallery.
With the delimitation process set to alter the composition of the house, finding adequate physical space for its members has become an immediate logistical challenge for the Haryana administration. The government's next steps on this front are now keenly awaited.
