Important bills, if any, to be introduced in first phase of Budget session beginning from Jan 29: Parl affairs minister

By Pragya Kaushika
New Delhi [India], January 5 (ANI): The Union minister for Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi while announcing the dates for the budget session said that the government's intention is to complete the session without any curtailment.
Joshi told ANI that the first phase of the budget session will begin on January 29 and conclude on February 15.
"In first half of the budget session, the President's address will be delivered on January 29 along with the discussion on it. The budget will be presented on February 1. If there are any emergency bills or ordinance to bring, we will prefer to do that in first phase. Bills which need to be taken will be taken. There will be question and zero hour as well and the rest will be at the discretion of the Speaker," said the parliamentary affairs minister.
Taking a dig at reports of Ghulam Nabi Azad, leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha writing to the Vice president to convene parliament session, Joshi said, "Probably he got to know about the session and that's why he wrote the letter. This is the tactics of the opposition. Ghulam Nabi is a senior man and I have respect for him."
The minister said the second phase of the budget session will be from March 8 to April 8.
"In that phase we would discuss grants and finance bill too will be discussed. Session, hopefully, will be longer. Last time we planned session to be a little longer but due to pandemic and members of opposition too requested curtailment of session, we could not run it fully. This time it will be like it used to be. This is our intention," said the minister.
The minister also said while Covid-19 protocols are to be followed, there is no plan to get MPs vaccinated. "Government has clarified vaccine would be given to frontline workers first," said Joshi. (ANI)