Parliament panel to meet on February 8 on biodiversity bill

The Joint Parliamentary Committee on Biodiversity Bill will be meeting on February 8 when committee members will be holding meet with some State Biodiversity Boards.

The committee has met twice since its formation and has invited suggestions from people on the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill, 2021 that was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December.

The Joint Committee put out a notice in the public domain, including advertisements in main newspapers on Sunday, inviting "memoranda containing views/suggestions from the public in general and NGOs/experts/stakeholders and institutions in particular".

The deadline given is 15 days from the publication of the advertisement.

The Committee is expected to submit a report by the last day of the first week of the next Session, which would mean before or by February 6. Lok Sabha member Dr Sanjay Jaiswal (BJP) is the chairperson of the Joint Committee.

Earlier, Rajya Sabha Member and Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav had moved the Bill to the Joint Committee of the two Houses on December 20.

Yadav had introduced the Bill in the Lok Sabha on December 16 amid din of the opposition members. There was no debate on the issue and the House was soon adjourned. The government then sent the Bill to a Select Committee.

A day after that, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had expressed the "strongest possible protest" that the government had referred the Bill to a Select Committee and not to the Parliamentary Standing Committee.

Apart from Dr Jaiswal, members of the Committee from the Lok Sabha are Diya Kumari (BJP), Dr Heena Vijaykumar Gavit (BJP), Aparajita Sarangi (BJP), Raju Bista (BJP), Pallab Lochan Das (BJP), Santosh Pandey (SP), Prathap Simha (BJP), Jugal Kishore Sharma (BJP) and others.

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