Top officials from ministries gear up to convert ordinances into legislation

NEW DELHI: Racing against time to convert recent ordinances into legislations in Budget session beginning on February 23, top officials of several ministries will sit together tomorrow to move forward in this direction.

Sources said that Secretaries and officials from the ministries of Home, Finance, Law, Rural Development, Steel and Mines, Agriculture, Coal and Surface Transport will be attending a meeting convened by Parliamentary Affairs Ministry tomorrow to thrash out the blueprint of the legislations and the legalities involved.

Eight ordinances that the NDA government has brought in its over seven-month rule include those on coal, mines and minerals, e-rickshaws, amendment to Citizenship Act, Land Acquisition and the one on FDI in insurance sector, which seeks to raise the FDI limit in the insurance sector from 26 per cent to 49 per cent.

The government is especially under pressure to legislate the ordinance on insurance sector and the coal sector in view of the fact that the new systems in place for attracting FDI in insurance and for auctioning of coal blocks are not disturbed.

As per the rules, an Ordinance has to be converted into legislation within 42 days of commencement of Parliament session else it lapses. An Ordinance can be repromulgated only three times.

A day after President Pranab Mukherjee voiced his objection to the 'Ordinance route', senior ministers had on January 20 met to discuss how the recent Ordinances can be replaced by legislative action in the Budget session of Parliament.

The meeting convened by Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu was then attended by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and six others, who had deliberated upon the implications that some sectors like coal will have if the Ordinances are not followed up by passage of bills in Parliament.

After the ministers' meeting, the Cabinet Committee of Parliamentary Affairs (CCPA) had met the next day and decided the schedule of the Budget session.