LS Speaker Om Birla to inaugurate 19 CPA Conference in Sikkim

NEW DELHI: The 19th annual Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), India Zone-3 conference, will be inaugurated by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, on February 23 at Gangtok, Sikkim.

Governor of Sikkim, Lakshman Prasad Acharya, Chief Minister of Sikkim, Prem Singh Tamang, Deputy Chairman, Rajya Sabha, Harivansh, Presiding Officers of Legislative Bodies in India, Members of Parliament, Members of Sikkim Legislature and other dignitaries are scheduled to participate in the event.

The two-day Conference will deliberate on many issues ranging from making parliament and assembly more accessible to the public. Drug abuse and the way forward and Cyber Bullying are the core issues, which will be discussed in this conference.

At the conclusion of the Conference, Birla will deliver the Valedictory address on 24 February 2023. It is pertinent to note that till now, 18 Zonal Conferences have been held in the North Eastern States that include the Events of North East Region of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (NERCPA) and CPA Zone-III.

The CPA Zone-III comprises of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. As CPA Zone-III, two Conferences have been held, i.e. Guwahati, Assam on 8 October 2018 and Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh on 12 and 13 May 2022.

The CPA India Region comprises a total of 31 Legislatures, from Assam in the East to Gujarat in the West. After the Africa Region, India has the largest number of member branches of the CPA. The executive committee of the CPA India Region consists of the CPA India Regional Chairperson and six members.

Lok Sabha Om Birla is its current Regional Chairperson. Administratively, the CPA India Region is divided into 4 zones--

Zone -1: Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Jharkhand, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh Uttaranchal, West Bengal (8 Branches), Zone -2: Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Puducherry (UT), Tamil Nadu, Telangana (8 Branches), Zone- 3: Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura (8 Branches) and Zone- 4: Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan (7 Branches).