Tripura Legislative Assembly

Tripura Legislative Assembly ত্রিপুরা বিধানসভা
11th Assembly
Type
Type	Unicameral
Established	1963
Leadership
Speaker	Ramendra Chandra Debnath, CPI (M) Since 15 March 2013
Deputy Speaker	Pabitra Kar, CPI (M) Since 18 March 2013
Secretary	Bamdeb Majumder, CPI (M)
Chief Minister	Manik Sarkar, CPI (M) Since 6 March 2013
Leader of Opposition	Ratan Lal Nath, INC Since 26 April 2013 - 29 July 2013
Leader of Opposition	Sudip Roy Barman, INC Since 29 July 2013
Structure
Seats	60
250px
Political groups	CPI (M) (49)      INC(10)      CPI(1)
Elections
Voting system	First-past-the-post
Last election	14 February 2013
Meeting place
Agartala
Website
tripuraassembly.nic.in

The Tripura Legislative Assembly or Tripura Vidhan Sabha (Bengali: ত্রিপুরা বিধানসভা) is the unicameral legislature of the northeastern Indian state of Tripura, with 60 MLAs. The present Assembly is located in Gurkhabasti. Ujjayanta Palace in Agartala served as the previous meeting place. The tenure of the Assembly is five years unless sooner dissolved. The present House is the Eleventh Legislative Assembly where Ramendra Chandra Debnath is the current speaker of the House.

History

Tripura was a Princely State till Government of Indian Dominion took over the Administration in 1949 under an agreement made between the Governor-General of India and His Highness the Maharaja of Tripura which was signed by V.P. Menon, Adviser to the Government of India, Ministry of States, on behalf of the Governor General and by Kanchan Prabha Devi Maharani Regent, Tripura State, on behalf of the Maharaja, who was a minor. According to this Agreement, the Tripura Administration order 1949 was passed by the Government of India on 15 October 1949. The Order provided for the appointment of Chief Commissioner and placed him at the Head of the State Tripura A Regency Council was formed in the State for a short period before Independence which was dissolved with the signing of an Agreement of merger of Tripura with the Indian Union in September 1949. It became a Part `C’ State in October 1949. On 1 November 1956, Tripura became a Union Territory and an Advisory Committee was formed to advise the Chief Commissioner. On 15 August 1957, a Territorial Council was formed with 30 elected members and two members nominated by the Government of India.

On 1 July 1963, the Tripura Territorial Council was dissolved and a Legislative Assembly with the existing members of the Territorial Council was formed. The Parliament was empowered to allow a council of advisers or ministers to function as the executive of that state for the purpose of aiding the Chief Commissioner. The President appointed three Advisors in the State of Tripura with effect from 14 April 1953. The Territorial Council Act, 1956 provided for territorial Council of Tripura composed of 32 Members of whom 30 were elected by the people on the basis of adult suffrage and two were nominated by the Central Government. The term of office of a member of a Territorial Council was five years. Under the Territorial Council Act, the Territorial Council should choose two members of the Council to be respectively Chairman and Vice Chairman. The Tripura Territorial Council worked with limited Power from 1957.

A panoramic view of the former (9th) Assembly building located in Ujjayanta palace (Pic taken on 29th October, 2007 )

The first election of Territorial Council was held in 1957 for 5 years. The North Eastern Areas (Reorganization) Act,1971, was passed in the Parliament and assented to by the President on 30 December 1971. In Tripura this Act was given effect to on and from 21 January 1972 under which the State of Tripura attained full Statehood of the Indian Union. The State Legislative Assembly became sixty seated according to the Constitution and first election was held in March 1972.. The State Legislature is a unicameral body with a Legislative Assembly consisting of 60 members. The tenure of the Assembly is five years unless sooner dissolved.

Previous assemblies

The assemblies constituted so far are listed below

No.	Period
1st Assembly	1.7.63 to 12.01.67
2nd Assembly	1.3.67 to 1.11.71
3rd Assembly	20.3.72 to 5.11.77
4th Assembly	5.1.78 to 7.1.83
5th Assembly	10.1.83 to 5.2.88
6th Assembly	5.2.88 to 28.2.93
7th Assembly	10.4.93 to 10.3.98
8th Assembly	10.3.98 to 28.2.03
9th Assembly	4.3.03 to 3.3.08
10th Assembly	10.03.08 to 01.03.13
11th Assembly	02.03.13 to till date

Tenth assembly

The members of the tenth assembly are

At a Glance

Assembly at a glance

No. of Assembly & its Period	Date of its First Sitting	Governor (Name with Period)	Speaker	Dy. Speaker	Leader of the House	Leader of the Opposition	Minister of Parliamentary Affairs	Secretary
1st Assembly 01.07.1963 to 12.01.1967	07.10.1963	i. Shri Santi Priya Mukherjee, IAS ii. Shri. M.C. Mukherjee, IAS	Shri Upendra Kumar Roy	Md. Ersad Ali Choudhury	Shri Sachindra Lal Singh	i. Shri Aghore Deb Barma ii. Shri Nripendra Chakraborty	Department of Parliamentary Affairs was not created
2nd Assembly 01.03.1967 to 01.11.1971	14.03.1967	i. Shri U.N. Sharma, IAS ii. Shri D.K. Bhattacharya iii. A.L. Dias, ICS iv. Baleswar Prasad, IAS	Shri Manindra Lal Bhowmik	Shri Manoranjan Nath	Shri Sachindra Lal Singh	Shri Bidya Chandra Deb Barma	Department of Parliamentary Affairs newly created in February 1971. This Deptt. was allocated to Shri Prafulla Kumar Das, 01.02.1971 to 01.11.1971

Library

The Tripura Legislative Assembly Secretariat has a fairly well equipped and prestigious Library. This Library was established in 1972 with a few numbers of books. At present it has about 20,000 books. It is one the largest, richest, and best reference repositories of the Hon’ble Member of Legislative Assembly by supplying them all available sources of information like Books, Reports, Debates, Newspaper, Articles, Bare Acts, Govt. Gazettes etc. This library has played a vital role in offering knowledge to the persons interested specially in the field of research done by particular researchers. This Library also helps the office of this Secretariat in smooth functioning of administration in accordance with the prevailing rules.This Library has collected different kinds of books like Parliamentary Affairs, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, Religion, Agriculture, Literature, Biographies, Year Books, Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, Law Books, AIR etc.

Functions: The principal functions of this Library are acquisition, processing, presentation and issuing of books and to fulfill the Parliamentary requirements of the members as well as staff of the Legislature to the maximum possible extent and also within shortest possible time as any delay would hamper the functioning of the House.

Working Hours: The Library shall remain open during the office hours on all working days. On the days of the Assembly sitting, it shall be kept open for one hour before the commencement of the sitting and till half-an hour after adjournment of the House.

Holdings: The holdings of this Library at present is as follows :

• Books - About 20,000(including complimentary books)
• Local Newspaper - 4 nos. namely Dainik Sambad, Daily Desher Katha, Tripura Darpan since 1996 onwards.
• Proceedings (Debates) of the House :- Since 1963 onwards.
• Gazettes - Government of Tripura-From 1972.
• Committee reports - Tripura Legislative Assembly.
• Bills - Passed by the House since 1964 onwards.

Present Collection of this Library are as follows - (a) Number of Journals : 3 nos (b) Number of Subscribe Newspaper (i) English : 7 nos (ii) Mother Language : 20 nos This Library has a fumigation chamber for preservation of the evading materials in general and for rare books, purpose.

Library Committee: The library Committee of Tripura Legislative Assembly is a nominated committee to advice on all matters concerning the development of the Assembly Library. The Committee is constituted for the period of one year by Hon. Speaker. At present the Committee consists of 9 (nine) members. Committee mainly keeps a watch on the quality and quantum of all acquisitions of the Library and gives comments and also gives suggestions for further improvement of the functioning of the Assembly Library and its ancillary service whenever necessary.

Administrative set up of the library -

• Chief Documentation Officer
• Head Librarian cum Research and Reference Officer
• Senior Research Assistant
• Senior Documentation Assistant
• Senior Librarian
• Librarian
• Reference Assistant
• Library Assistant / L. D. Clerk
• Sorter
• Book Binder
• Peon

External links

• Official government website of Tripura