Parliamentary panels on Home, Labour to discuss Covid-19 related issues on Wednesday

With Parliamentary Standing Committees starting deliberations from the first week of July, the Covid-19 situation is coming up for discussion before more and more multi-party panels with the one on Home Affairs taking up the pandemic for discussion on Wednesday.

However, a meeting of Standing Committee of Labour, scheduled for Wednesday to discuss Covid-19 related matters, was deferred to July 20 after its Chairman Bhartruhari Mahtab went into self quarantine after a Parliament Secretariat staff tested positive for Covid-19.

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Mahtab had attended a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on July 10 in which the Parliament staff attended, prompting the BJD leader to go into self quarantine and deferring the scheduled deliberations.

The Standing Committee on Home Affairs headed by Congress Deputy Leader in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma will get a briefing from Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla on the 'Management of Covid-19 pandemic and coordination with State Governments, phased unlocking, resumption of economic activities, inter-state movement of people and goods and state of preparedness'.

The panel on Labour will hear the top officials of the Ministry of Labour and Employment on the changes made in labour laws by several state governments during the Covid-19 lockdown, which had attracted criticism from various sections. The committee will also seek clarifications from the officials about the impact the pandemic had on migrant labourers.

The Home panel’s meeting comes five days after the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology headed by senior Congress MP Jairam Ramesh met to discuss the "preparedness to deal with Covid-19 and other pandemics in future". Top government officials told the panel that a vaccine for the virus infection would take at least a year to be available for treatment.

On August 4, the Standing Committee on Health headed by senior Samajwadi Party leader Ramgopal Yadav would be meeting for a briefing from the Health Secretary on the status of 'Outbreak of pandemic Covid-19 and related Contingent and Mitigation Plan'.

However, the attempt by Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairperson Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary to take up discussions on Covid-19 and utilisation of PM-CARES funds did not succeed as BJP MPs stone-walled the suggestion citing rules.

The Parliamentary panels have not been since the lockdown on March 25. An earlier meeting of the Home panel scheduled on June 3 to discuss Covid-19 and lockdown was postponed after several MPs expressed their inability to attend the meeting due to quarantine measures taken by respective states.

The demand for conducting the panel meeting through online had been raised but the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Secretariat have made it clear that for such changes, the Parliament has to first adopt a resolution. Concerns about confidentiality of the proceedings were also raised.

Panel heads like Sharma, Ramesh, Mahtab and Shashi Tharoor (Information and Technology) had also repeatedly demanded for allowing meetings through video conference.

Senior DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran has written to Sharma that it would be difficult for him to attend the meeting if the quarantine restrictions are applicable to him on his return to Tamil Nadu. He had demanded a virtual meeting.