As proceedings remained disrupted in the Rajya Sabha, the Government on Thursday hinted that it may go for Ordinance route for giving effect to the Insurance laws (Amendment) Bill and bring in a fresh ordinance to ensure auction of coal blocks as the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Bill, which had replaced an earlier Ordinance, faced the danger of getting stuck in a Parliament logjam.
Speaking on the Insurance Bill, a senior Minister said there was “no legal or technical issue” involved in bringing the ordinance.
Another Union Minister maintained that there were “lot of past precedents” for such Ordinances and did not rule out the possibility of the Government taking recourse to “this option.”
On the question whether the Insurance Bill remained “the House property,” he said there was no need to withdraw it “even if Ordinance was to be brought”.
There is thinking in the Government that the entire foreign investment community is closely watching the reform process in India, and it is important to send the right signal by bringing in the Ordinance if the Opposition does not allow passage of the Insurance Bill.
Blaming Opposition for deliberate disruption of the House by seeking suspension of the Question Hour and Zero Hour every day, a senior Union Minister said, “The Opposition wants to have its cake and eat it too”.
“Even some of the legislations in the lok Sabha were supported by the Congress. But the same party is behaving in a different manner in the Rajya Sabha, trying to make an issue out of a non-issue. They are now searching for some excuse to justify their behaviour. I don’t think they will get any support from anyone,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said outside Parliament House here.
Meanwhile, highly-placed sources said the Coal Ministry was seriously looking at the option of promulgating a fresh Ordinance as it believes that the continued stalling of the Rajya Sabha proceedings by the Opposition on the religious conversions issue may not allow the Bill to be passed in the Upper House.
With the Winter Session set to end on December 23, sources pointed out that the non-passage of the Bill in the Rajya Sabha will also lead to the Ordinance (with which the Bill was replaced and passed in the lok Sabha on December 12) getting lapsed.
If this happens, then the Government may find it difficult to kickstart its plan of e-auction of 92 coal blocks. last month, the Coal Ministry had announced the timeline for auction of the blocks. According to the schedule, the bid due date is February 11, 2015, while the Government hopes to finalise the technical bid qualification by March 3. The e-auction process will start on March 6 and by March 16, the blocks will be awarded to successful bidders.
late on Thursday evening, the Coal Ministry came out with an approach paper listing the entire schedule of coal blocks, which it plans to auction. According to the plan, the Government has added nine more blocks to the original list of 92 blocks, which it plans to auction by March 2015, thus, taking the total number of blocks on offer to 101.
Of the 101 blocks to be allotted and auctioned in the first lot, 63 mines would be given to the power sector, while the rest would be for sectors like steel and cement, said the Ministry’s approach paper.
The Government is keen to wind up the entire process before the end of the current fiscal, as by auctioning the blocks, it wants to introduce the long-term reform measures in the coal sector, which also include expediting supply of coal to critical thermal plants by acquisition of greater number of rakes, and fast-tracking important rail links in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha. Taking Coal India’s annual production to 1 billion tonnes by 2019 is also part of these reform measures.
The lok Sabha had on December 12 passed the Coal Mines Bill amid attack from the Opposition. The Opposition was demanding that the legislation, which it claimed, had many lacunae like those relating to land acquisition and workers’ welfare, should be sent to Parliamentary Standing Committee for scrutiny.
The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Bill, which replaces an ordinance, was brought in the wake of the Supreme Court order cancelling the allocation of 204 coal blocks on September 24 and resetting the agenda for their allocation. The ordinance was issued in October to facilitate auctioning of the cancelled blocks. In the first round, 92 blocks are to be auctioned by the Government.