NEW DELHI: Running out of time to complete pending legislative business in the current session of Parliament, the Upper House
on Wednesday introduced two bills and passed four others including the
ones to protect the right of urban street vendors and safeguard them
against harassment by police and civic authorities.
Though the
two bills - one to bring uniformity in the tenure, allowances and
retirement age of chairpersons and members of the various tribunals and
other one relating to food safety and standards - were introduced in the
din, the members passed the four pending Bills with voice votes when
the House was in order.
Since members from all political parties
agreed to clear these proposed legislation quickly without any
discussion, the House passed all the four Bills within 30 minutes.
The bills which were passed include setting up Rani Lakshmi Bai Central
Agriculture University in Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh,
converting the Bengal Engineering and Science University in Sibpur, West
Bengal, into an institute of national importance and the one relating
to provide secretarial assistance and other benefits to former
governors.
The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and
Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2014 -- which provides for
protection of livelihoods rights, social security of street vendors --
was passed by Lok Sabha in September last year.
Allaying
apprehensions of MPs about adequate representation to vendors and others
in panels for decision like determination of natural market, the
housing and urban poverty alleviation minister Girija Vyas assured them
that 40% members of the 'Town Vending Committees' will be from amongst
street vendors including women and persons from SC/ST categories.
The Bill has provision to constitution of a 'Town Vending Authority' in
each local authority to ensure participatory decision making for
aspects like determination of natural market, identification of vending
zones, preparation of street vending plan and survey of street vendors
among others.
Responding to members' concerns over
identification of street vendors, the minister said that a survey for
this purpose would be taken up at the earliest to ensure certificates to
street vendors.
The National Institute of Technology, Science
Education and Research (Amendment) Bill, 2013 was passed after minister
of state for HRD Shashi Tharoor moved it in the absence of HRD minister M
M Pallam Raju who is a Lok Sabha member of Congress from Andhra Pradesh
Raising objections to Tharoor moving the bill in the absence of Raju,
BJP member Ravi Shankar Prasad raised a point of order saying a bill can
be moved only by a cabinet minister and not by a junior minister unless
permitted to do so. He also sought to know why Pallam Raju was not
present in the House for passage of the Bill. Deputy chairman P J
Kurien, however, said the Chair has allowed him to do so.
The bill, which also seeks to transform the university into Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), was passed by Lok Sabha in December.
The bill to bring uniformity in the tenure, allowances and retirement
age of chairpersons and members of the various tribunals functioning in
the country was introduced by the law minister Kapil Sibal. The bill
provides chairpersons and members of tribunals a uniform tenure of a
maximum of five years. But, they will have varied retirement ages of 70
years for a Supreme Court judge and 67 years for a High Court judge.
The retirement age of 65 has been proposed for those who join tribunals
from the administrative side. As of now, some tribunals have a
three-year tenure for retired judges, while others provide for five
years.
The other bill was introduced by the health minister
Ghulam Nabi Azad. It is related to amending the Food Safety and
Standards Act, 2006. The current Parliament session will end on Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment