The fate of three key social sector Bills concerning land, education and labour continues to be uncertain although they are all set to make it to the Lok Sabha this session.
Union Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh is worried about the Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill and the amendments to the Land Acquisition Act. Together, these two pieces of legislation will settle the issue of how land should be acquired for industrialisation, both by the state and the private sector. But if the Bills are not passed in the life of this Lok Sabha, the whole process of fashioning the policy will have to be started anew by the next government.
As the parliamentary standing committee on rural development is yet to finalise its report, Singh has been urging the committee members to expedite the process. This is not the first time he has had to resort to unconventional methods to secure the passage of a Bill. During the formative days of drafting the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Singh had to run from pillar to post to move the Bill forward.
So much so that one day Singh found Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the Central Hall of Parliament and complained to her that some Congress ministers (of the empowered group of ministers formed to look into the Bill) were delaying the process. Gandhi quickly intervened, summoned those ministers and that is how the flagship NREGA Bill saw the light of day.
As the forthcoming session will be the last one in the current Lok Sabha, Singh recognises this might be his last chance to pass the rehabilitation policy. Privately, some members feel that the chairman of the committee, Kalyan Singh, should have been more active in preparation of the reports. The committee hopes to submit the report during the next session.
The fate of yet another key social sector Bill, the Right to Education Bill, will also be decided in this session of Parliament. The human resource development ministry had floated a model Bill some years ago. A high-level group was formed with Union Minister Arjun Singh, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, but it met once in 2006 and again last year.
Sources say that this group mostly discussed the reasons they were opposed to the Bill. Taking their objections on board, the ministry went about its task of redrafting the legislation, with activists and other lobbies adding their inputs. Finally, it came to the Cabinet two months ago.
The Cabinet decided to refer the draft Bill to an empowered group of ministers. As Arjun Singh was indisposed, a meeting of the EGoM was held at his residence last week and cleared the Bill.
But the delay has taken its toll. Senior advisor (social sector) in the Planning Commission, Santosh Mehrotra, said: “The Bill will be referred to the standing committee and is unlikely to be passed in this session. But it won’t be a wasted effort as we will have got all parties to agree on a formula and take it forward in the next government for a new effort.”
Some tried to make a case for introducing the Bill in the Rajya Sabha to prevent it from lapsing after the end of this government, but this move was contested by the finance minister who said it was a Money Bill and had to be first introduced in the Lok Sabha.
Another Bill, the Unorganised Sector Bill, shows promise as it has got both the recommendations of the standing committee and also the consent of the government. The labour ministry said that notice had been sent to the Rajya Sabha on the amendments proposed by the standing committee. “If the Lok Sabha is allowed to function, it will go through,” said a top official in the ministry.
