 "Food Bill may be taken up in Parliament today")
The extended monsoon session is widely seen as the last effective chance of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to pass key bills before the next general elections.
Though the Lok Sabha functioned on Saturday, in lieu of a holiday last week, the food Bill was not listed as opposition parties wanted it to be debated on Monday.
"The food bill will be taken up Monday," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath had told reporters on Friday.
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If it gets passed in the lower house on Monday, the Bill can be taken up in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
Politics scuttled Congress managers' plans to get it passed for the entire week August 19-24 as the opposition did not let the house run over the issues of missing coal-block allocation files, statehood for Telangana and high prices of food items.
The floor managers hope that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement in the Rajya Sabha on Monday would end the controversy over missing coal-block files.
Last week, twelve Lok Sabha MPs from Andhra Pradesh, including seven from the Congress, were suspended last week for the rest of the session for their persisting protests against Telangana.
The government may face fresh trouble as TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao is likely to be present in the lower house on Monday along with his colleagues.
His presence assumes some political significance since it was for the first time Rao is visiting Delhi after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) and the UPA took the decision in favour of granting statehood to Telangana in July.
Meanwhile, the Bill might be headed for another roadblock after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha said that the AIADMK will vote against it. She said the Bill in its present form does not help Tamil Nadu.
The UPA is also keen to push a few more financial sector reforms through the legislative route. The amendments to the Sebi Act and the long-pending pension fund (PFRDA) bill are pitched as the top issues for the session.