New Delhi: Senior Congress MP KC Venugopal will head the all-important Public Accounts Committee (PAC), while the BJP will have its MPs as heads of four other prominent Parliamentary panels, including Estimates.
The announcement of Chairpersons for PAC as well as Committees on Estimates, Public Undertakings, Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were made in the Lok Sabha bulletin after Speaker Om Birla's nod on Friday.
BJP leader Sanjay Jaiswal will head the 30-member Committee on Estimates, while his party colleague Baijayant Panda will chair the 22-member Committee on Public Undertakings. The Committee on Welfare of OBCs will be headed by Ganesh Singh, while Faggan Singh Kulaste will head the Committee on Welfare of SCs and STs.
The committees will have a tenure of one year.
On August 1, DH had reported that 22 MPs – 15 from Lok Sabha and seven from Rajya Sabha – were elected unopposed to the PAC and Venugopal was all set to head the crucial Parliamentary panel. The PAC’s main job is to ascertain that money granted by Parliament has been spent by the government “within the scope of the demand”.
The chairmanship of the multi-party panel is given conventionally to the main Opposition party. Of the 22 MPs elected unopposed, 10 are from BJP, four from Congress and two each from Trinamool Congress, DMK, and one each from Samajwadi Party, Jana Sena, NCP and TDP.
Senior Congress leaders KV Thomas and Mallikarjun Kharge (between 2014 and 2019) and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (2019-2024) headed the PAC in the past 10 years.
The PAC, Committee on Public Undertakings, Committee on Estimates, Committee on Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Joint Committee on Office of Profit and Committee on Welfare of Other Backward Classes have been constituted without an election this time, unlike in the previous Lok Sabha.
Published 17 August 2024, 07:46 IST
