Lack of quorum: House adjourned

Uditha Kumarasinghe and Irangika Range

Deputy Chairman of Committees Ramalingam Chandrasekar yesterday adjourned House until July 7 due to the lack of quorum to continue yesterday's Supplementary Estimate Debate in Parliament.

Industrial Development Minister Kumara Welgama presented a supplementary estimate of Rs.200 million seeking Parliament approval to uplift the local tyre manufacturing industry. When the debate was continuing, JVP MP Pemasiri Manage informed the Chairperson that there was no quorum in the House to continue the debate.

Thereafter, Deputy Secretary General of Parliament, Dhammika Dissanayake rang the quorum bell for members to arrive in the House.

According to Parliamentary tradition, there should be at least 20 MPs in the Chambers to conduct the debate.

When the debate was being conducted, there were only eight members in the Chamber including the Chairperson, Ministers Kumara Welgama, D.E.W. Gunasekara, Milroy Fernando and Mahinda Ratnatilaka and JVP MP Pemasiri Manage,UNP MP M.N. Naushad, and TNA MP Thomas William.

Therefore, the supplementary estimate was not passed and the Deputy Chairman of Committees adjourned the House until July 7.

Meanwhile, the proposed supplementary estimate was intended to develop the local tyre manufacturing industry. The fund will be used to adopt the latest technology to the industry enabling to increase the capacity of the tyre productivity.

It has also been planned to find local and foreign market potentials for local tyres while carrying out many programs to train technical officials to be attached to the industry. The Minister said the country is currently manufacturing 90 percent of tyres for bicycles.

"We manufacture over three million tyres for the use of bicycles while 60 percent of bicycle tyres are exported currently," he said.

Meanwhile, nearly one million tyres are produced within the country to fulfill the tyre requirements of cars, vans, trucks, buses and three-wheelers.