Belagavi: Strongly defending the escalation in the cost of holding the 10-day legislature session in Belagavi, Speaker, Koliwad on Sunday demanded that the state government release Rs 100 crore to build a Legislature Home here to put an end to the need to rent lodging facilities.
Speaking to reporters here, Mr Koliwad observed that this is an annual exercise where departments are forced to hire facilities for MLAs, bureaucrats and mediapersons. “The cost does not remain stagnant, it rises as time flies by, hence, whatever we are spending cumulatively in four or five years on lodging, we can use it to build a permanent structure in the form of a Legislature Home,” he suggested.
In response to a question, Mr Koliwad asserted that every department is asking for more money to send its employees here. For instance, the police department alone has demanded Rs 4-5 crore for providing lodging for policemen who come here to provide security. “Apart from the demand from various departments, even GST has become a burden for us, of the Rs 26 crore total expenditure, nearly Rs 6 crore gets deducted as GST, hence the rise in the cost of organizing the session,” he reasoned.
