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A special one-month session of the Assembly being convened from June 24 would see the newly installed Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Government come up with its maiden Budget.
Announcing this here after a meeting of the Cabinet council of Ministers, the Chief Minister, Mr Oommen Chandy, told newspersons that the session will start with a formal address to the House by the Governor.
TWEAKING DOCUMENT
The making of the new Budget is expected to basically involve tweaking of the 2011-12 document presented on February 10 by Dr T. M. Thomas Isaac, Finance Minister in the previous Government.
The incumbent, Mr K. M. Mani, a veteran of eight State Budgets, has gone on record berating the existing Budget as ‘amounting to no more than a jugglery with imaginary numbers.'
On the proposed Kochi Metro Rail project, the Chief Minister said that the State Government will push a proposal that has already been submitted to the Centre by the predecessor Government.
It does not mean that the Government would give up if the Centre rejected the proposal. But Mr Chandy doubted the bona fides of the proponent Government in following up the proposal with vigour, when and where warranted.
Mr Chandy took exception to needless controversy over an ‘emerging policy vacuum' following trifurcation of the erstwhile Local Self-Government Department.
A prominent constituent of the UDF Government is alleged to have proceeded on its own to divide the department to ‘suit its own interests without so much as waiting for the Chief Minister's concurrence.'
It is in this context that Mr Chandy announced the setting up of a permanent panel comprising three senior ministerial colleagues who would liaise with the individual departments to avoid clash of interests and expedite decision-making.
The Chief Minister also said that a separate four-member ministerial sub-committee is being constituted to monitor developmental works in the State, some of which have either stalled or are lagging in various stages of completion.
In another decision, the Cabinet gave the go-ahead to a proposal to raise the number of seats in Plus-Two by 20 per cent.
NEW APPOINTMENTS
Mr Rajeev Sadanandan has been appointed Secretary, Health, while Mr Anil Xavier and Ms Sarada Muraleedharan have been given the additional charges of Labour and Social Welfare respectively. No decision has been taken on a new Chief Secretary, the Chief Minister said.
Election to the position of the Speaker of the new House would be conducted on June 2. The Deputy Speaker would be elected in due course.
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