Two well-known officials said that Rajya Sabha President Venkaiah Naidu and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla had been asked by the union government to prepare for a “normal session” of Parliament, due to begin in the third week of July.
“The session’s timetable is from 19 July until 13 August. “Anyone of the people who were asked not to be named said, the Cabinet committee for Parliamentary affairs, led by defence minister Rajnath Singh, is to meet to decide the schedule. Three days ago, the Chairman’s communication was sent.
Due to the coronavirus disease pandemic, the last three parliamentary sessions were shortened with both houses skipping over the winter sessions. On June 8, HT reported the normal schedule of the monsoon meeting, which was likely to be held in July, citing one of the top officials.
The second official added that an ebbing of the second wave of the pandemic combined with full immunisation of more than 75% of PMs (in both houses) would result in a full session as usual.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla recently stated to HT that the upcoming session follows common security protocols for Covid, but that vaccination is not a precondition. During the last session, RT-PCR tests were required and regular.
The approval of Parliament and a normal session which normally takes one month can provide the government with sufficient space to pursue the legislative agenda, with at least 40 billed and five ordinances pending. The opposition too can call for discussion of matters which, due to lack of time, could not be accommodated in the last session. “These are issues that we want to address, such as the economic situation, vaccines policy, spiralling price increases and fuel price rises.
Currently, five ordinances apply. The Ordinance on Homeopathy, the Indian Medicine Central Council (Amendment) Ordinance, the Air Quality Management Commission for the National Capital region and Adjacent Areas, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code Ordinance (Amendment) and the Tribunals Reforms Ordinance (Rationalisation and Service Conditions) have to be replaced with bills such as the Indian Consultation Ordinance.
For seven consecutive weeks, the second pandemic wave has now seen a steady fall. The average seven days of new infections reached a maximum of 391,819 new cases daily on 9 May and dropped by over 88 percent to 48,423 cases a day last week.
Meanwhile, the vaccination rate has been increasing with the new vaccine policy that began on 21 June. Almost six million doses of vaccination were administered each day throughout the country between June 21 and June 28 – the highest ever. 56.3 million Indians had both received vaccine doses and 211 million others had received one dose before Tuesday evening.
