The Monsoon session

The monsoon session of Parliament provides ashort window of opportunity to clear the backlog of pending legislations but experts say progress may be limited as proceedings are expected to be stormy given the political situation. And the mountain of legislations is staggering with nearly 81 bills pending before Parliament, some of them for several years. Parliament convenes for the monsoon session from August 1 and is likely to meet for about 26 days which analysts say should provide enough room to the Centre to get some key legislations approved. But it may not be all smooth sailing as several bills have been referred to standing committees which are examining them while others have been returned for consideration. Only 12% of the budget session was spent on legislation in the Lok Sabha and 6% in the Rajya Sabha, according to PRS Legislative, a private think tank. Of the 13 bills announced by the government in its 100-day agenda, only one has been cleared so far. “There is a cost for not passing a bill. The pension bill, for instance, has not yet been passed by Parliament but we already have a regulator and a pension fund that is functioning without statutory backing. This is not the best situation,’’ said M R Madhavan, head of research at PRS Legislative. A reason for the delay in getting legislations approved is the lack of consensus among parties. “We usually see that the parliamentary standing committees do a lot of work but it is the last mile where the government, for whatever reasons, is unable to pull off,’’ Madhavan said. Of the eight bills that were part of UPA-2’s 100-day agenda, only RTE has won parliamentary approval.Investors are keenly awaiting the fate of several financial sector legislations. The string of scandals in the past one year has led to a policy paralysis and stalled legislative business as the government has been caught up fending off allegations of corruption. “The government inaction on crucial financial and other key reforms has weakened the investment climate, and will soon start taking a toll on the economy. As a result, it has heightened the uncertainty, and there is genuine fear of a slowdown. The government needs to do take some corrective steps soon,” said Rajeev Kumar, director general of Ficci. At least 10 key financial sector reform bills await parliamentary nod. Some have been vetted by parliamentary standing committees but others have been pending for several years. They include the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2011, the Companies Bill 2009, Constitution (One hundred and fifteenth amendment) Bill, 2011, Direct Taxes Code Bill, 2010 and Pension Fund Regulatory.