Amid cacophony,11 bills passed,two withdrawn in minutes

Both the Bills had come in for a lot of flak from opposition Congress and the public as well. Later,while briefing mediapersons,Sukhbir blamed negative propaganda to their withdrawal. “There were apprehensions as to the motive and powers of these legislations. The bills were aimed at strengthening law and order machinery in the state,” he said.

Thereafter,five bills were tabled and passed in the first sitting,the most important being Punjab State Commission for Non-Resident Indians Bill. It would facilitate setting up of a state-level commission to as an appellate authority to redress complaints of Punjabi NRIs. The other bills passed were Punjab Prohibition of Cow Slaughter (Amendment) Bill and Punjab State Technical Education and Industrial Training (Amendement Bill).

Before end of last session,the House members,Speaker and Deputy Speaker also earned higher perks in the form of travel allowance through passing of the Punjab Legislative Assembly (Salaries and Allowances) Bill and Punjab Speaker and Deputy Speaker Salaries (second amendment) Bill.

In the evening session too,the treasury benches passed six bills within 10 minutes. These included the Punjab Civil Services (Rationalization of Certain Conditions of Services) Repeal Ordinance 2011 and the Guru Kashi University ordinance. The Guru Kashi University is being set up by the Balaji Educational Trust under the Punjab Private Universities Act 2010.