AP: Officials keep ministers in dark about details of bills

Hyderabad: Key departments in the AP Secretariat are keeping the Cabinet in the dark about details of bills and schemes that the ministers have to approve. Cabinet ministers too do not follow the Secretariat business rules when approving items listed on the agenda.

The Infrastructure department proposed the AP Infrastructure Development Enabling Act Amendment Bill to the Cabinet on Wednesday for approval. In the Cabinet note, the department said that the draft bill was under scrutiny by the Law department and needed Cabinet approval for introduction in the next Assembly session.

This is against Secretariat business rules. The ministers did not know the details of the draft Bill before approving it. Similarly, the Municipal department also proposed to the Cabinet the Visakhapatnam land pooling scheme for approval when the scheme was still under scrutiny by the Law department.

The state government recently issued an ordinance amending the APIDE Act. To replace the ordinance, the Infrastructure department prepared the draft Bill and sent it to the Law department for scrutiny.

According to Secretariat business rules, after scrutiny, the Law department will send the draft to the Infrastructure department, which will in turn circulate the file to the departments concerned.

After that the draft Bill will be sent to the minister concerned and at the final stage, it will be sent to the Chief Minister through the Chief Secretary, to be placed before the Cabinet.