New Delhi: Congress member Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was appointed as the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in keeping with the convention where the post goes to the leader from the opposition party.
The appointment was made by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla who also named chairpersons of some other parliamentary panels including the Estimates Committee, Committee on Public Undertakings and Committee on Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, sources said. The PAC has 15 members from both Lok Sabha and seven from Rajya Sabha.
Nine of 15 Lok Sabha members in the PAC are from BJP. They are Satya Pal Singh, Jayant Sinha, Subhash Chandra Baheria, Sudheer Gupta, Darshana Vikram Jardosh, Ajay (Teni) Misra, Jagadambika Pal, Vishnu Dayal Ram and Ram Kripal Yadav. The other members elected to the committee from Lok Sabha are T R Baalu (DMK), Bhartruhari Mahtab (BJD), Rahul Ramesh Shewale (Shiv Sena), Rajiv Ranjan Singh (JD-U) and Balashowry Vallabbhaneni (YSRC Party).
It was in 1967 that the Lok Sabha Speaker first appointed a member of opposition as Chairman of the committee and the practice has continued. Chowdhury, who is a leader of Congress in Lok Sabha, is the lone member of the party in the PAC from the House. The term of office of members of the Committee does not exceed one year at a time. Congress leader in the previous Lok Sabha term, Mallikarjun Kharge had also been chairman of the PAC.
The members from Rajya Sabha in PAC are Rajeev Chandrasekhar, M. V. Rajeev Gowda, Naresh Gujral, Bhubaneswar Kalita, C. M. Ramesh, Sukendu Sekhar Ray and Bhupender Yadav. The functions of the committee include an examination of accounts showing the appropriation of sums granted by Parliament for the expenditure of the government, the annual financial accounts of the government and other accounts laid before the House as the committee may think fit.
Sources said the Estimates Committee will be headed by Girish Bhalchandra Bapat, Committee on Public Undertakings by Meenakshi Lekhi and Committee on Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes by Kirit Premjibhai Solanki. The members of Estimates Committee include Danish Ali, Dayanidhi Maran, PP Choudhary, KC Patel, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma, Dilip Ghosh and Kamlesh Paswan among others.
Estimates Committee is one of the three financial standing committees of the parliament apart from the PAC and Committee on Public Undertakings. Members of Committee on Public Undertakings include Danish Ali, Kanimozhi, Poonamben Maadam, Saugata Roy, Ravneet Singh Bittu, Anil Jain, Om Prakash Mathur and Mahesh Poddar. Members of Committee on Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes include Santokh Singh Chaudhary, Tapir Gao, Vincent H Pala, Chedi Paswan, A Raja, Shamsher Singh Dullo and Wasnuk Syiem.
