Govt plans to introduce 28 new bills in Budget Session

The Narendra Modi government has intimated Parliament about its intent to bring 28 new Bills in the Budget Session, including the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill, Seeds Bill, Pesticides Management Bill and a bill to allow RBI place the gold deposits with Foreign Commercial Banks (FCB) or any financial institutions.

Besides these, the government also plans to get 17 pending Bills passed in the two-leg Budget Session that ends on April 3 and spread over 31 working days.

While the Budget will be presented on Saturday, the government is likely to get just one or two days for passing Bills in the first leg of the session that ends on February 11. The second leg starts from March 3 and ends on April 3.

In the first leg, sources said, the government plans to replace two ordinances with Minerals Laws (Amendment) Bill and The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Second Amendment) Bill.

Both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are scheduled to start discussion on the Motion of Thanks to the President's speech on Monday while Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to reply on Wednesday noon in Lok Sabha.

In Lok Sabha, the motion will be moved by BJP MP Parvesh Verma, who was in the eye of a storm over his controversial comments during the campaign for Delhi Assembly polls and removed from party's list of star campaigners by Election Commission.

The new bills include Seeds Bill, which seeks to regulate the quality of seeds sold in the market and the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill.

Another Bill on agenda is Pesticides Management Bill. "Pesticides are regulated in India through the Insecticides Act, 1968. The experience of administering the Insecticides Act, 1968 over a period of four decades has exposed the inadequacies of the extant regulation and spurred the need to propose a new law," the government has said.

The Pharmacy Council of Indian Medicine and Homeopathy Bill seeks to create a regulatory body for maintenance of Central Register of Pharmacists of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy and for matters connected therewith and to bring about uniformity and standardization in education and practice of Pharmacy of Indian Medicine and Homoeopathy.

The Companies (Second Amendment) Bill is another bill on top of the agenda as it seeks to make changes in the Companies Act, 2013 to decriminalise the offences and facilitate ease of doing business and ease of living.

Another Bill seeking to strengthening the financial stability on government table is the Bilateral Netting of Financial Contracts Bill, which enables India to become one of the major markets for the Over-The-Counter (OTC) Derivatives products.

The Reserve Bank of India (Amendment) Bill is another bill related to finance where the proposed changes seek to allow the Central Board of RBI to deploy forex reserves to invest in securities issued by a non-sovereign institution or body corporate established outside India and broaden the definition of securities to include mutual funds, exchange traded funds. It also seeks to allow the Central Board of RBI to place the gold deposits with Foreign Commercial Banks (FCB) or any financial institutions.