The lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the Warehousing Corporation (Amendment) Bill and a Bill to repeal 35 archaic Acts. Replying to the debate, Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan ruled out any move to privatise the Mini-Ratna company, the Central Warehousing Corporation. The Warehousing Corporation (Amendment) Bill has a limited scope and was necessitated by a legal requirement which said the Government will not be a guarantor for a “grade one” Mini-Ratna company like CWC, said Paswan.
He also allayed concerns of several Opposition members, including Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, over whether the Government intended to disinvest its shares and noted that the Bill was a “baby” of the UPA Government which could not get it passed due to general elections in 2014. “The question of privatisation does not arise... I am a grassroot person and as far as issues like privatisation or interests of farmers and workers are concerned, nobody needs to be worried...,” he said replying to a debate on the Bill. Paswan said the grain storage capacity in the country was adequate but farmers at many places suffered due to lack of centres where they can sell their produce.
Seeking to weed out archaic and dead laws, the lS approved a Bill to repeal as many as 35 legislations. “This is an initial step taken by the Government. We will see in a span of one or two years...The statute book will be cleared. And there will be no confusion as far as disposal of cases are concerned,” law Minister Sadananda Gowda said.
He was replying to a debate on ‘The Repealing and Amending Bill 2014’, which was later passed by voice vote. The Government initially proposed to repeal 36 laws but Employment of Manual Scavenging and Construction of Dry latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993 was withdrawn from the list following observations by the Standing Committee. “These laws at present are of no use and such dead laws create confusion if they continue in the statute books,” he said. Out of the 36 Acts proposed to be repealed, four were principal Acts and others were amendments to the various Acts.