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Govt mulls special session of Parliament in May
The Economic
Times, March 04, 2011
With the budget
session being truncated because of Assembly elections in five
states, the government is planning a special sitting of around
ten days in May end to make up for the lost time.
This sitting will be
used for legislative business, which will not be able to be
taken up during the ongoing session ending on March 25 after
completion of the crucial financial business. The finance bill
will be passed on March 22, after a two-day debate on it.
The general budget
will be discussed on March 8 and 9 and the guillotine on the
supplementary demands for grants of ministries will be applied
on March 17 evening. At a meeting of the Lok Sabha's Business
Advisory Committee (BAC) on Friday, it was decided to discuss
four ministries in the House-external affairs, mining, rural
development and surface transport.
While the demand to
debate external affairs was made by the BJP, the Congress sought
a discussion on mining, the Samajwadi Party on rural development
and the JD-U on surface transport. The BAC also decided to
debate the issue of Indian fishermen being allegedly killed by
the Sri Lankan navy and the Rewari issue. Though two days have
been kept for any exigency owing to disruptions, the women's
reservation bill did not figure at the meeting while deciding
the schedule for the rest of the session. The government was
pondering over two options-either extending the monsoon session
or having a special sitting after completion of the election
process in the five states. It is likely that the budget session
will not be prorogued after its adjourned on March 25. The
Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs (CCPA) chaired by
finance minister Pranab Mukherjee recommended ending the session
on March 25 and placed it before the BAC. The first phase of the
budget session was, according to the original schedule, to end
on March 16 for a recess following which it was to reassemble
from April 4 to 21. This schedule had to be changed as around
120 mps would be busy with assembly elections in April and May
in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Assam and Puducherry.
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