Smoking room being restored in Parliament House

NEW DELHI: Lawmakers now can again enjoy their smoke in Parliament House.

Smokers room, adjacent to the historic Central Hall, is being restored to them from tomorrow.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had converted the room to house a stenographers pool from the beginning of the Monsoon session last week on July 21.

A group of MPs, both from the ruling party and the Opposition, had met the Speaker on the first day of the session requesting for a 'smoking room'.

Their contention was that the room was part of the central hall and hence any activity of lawmakers alone could take place there and it is not meant for others.

Now the stenographers pool has been moved to a room on the third floor of Parliament House.

The room on the ground floor which was earlier being used by it has been allotted to Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress which was pitching for long for an office for its Parliamentary party.

An informal arrangement of having a smokers room was made after Central Hall and lobbies in Parliament House were declared a "no smoking" zone in 2004 by the then Speaker Somnath Chatterjee.