Parliament's Monsoon Session begins Monday, Sitharaman to present Union Budget on Jul 23

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on Tuesday as the Monsoon Session of Parliament gets underway next week with the united opposition set to corner the NDA government on issues ranging from the NEET paper leak case and railway safety.

The Monsoon Session begins on Monday and will have 19 sittings till August 12 when the government is expected to present six bills, including the one to replace the 90-year-old Aircraft Act, and also get the Parliament nod for the budget of Jammu and Kashmir, which is under central rule.

Sitharaman will also table the Economic Survey in Parliament on Monday.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju has convened a meeting of the floor leaders of political parties in Parliament to understand issues they would want to raise during the session.

The BJD, led by former Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, has declared that it would play the role of a strong opposition and aggressively raise issues of interest to the state in Parliament.

Patnaik, who was elected as the chairperson of BJD parliamentary party, has asked his party MPs to take up the demand for special category status for Odisha.

Earlier this week, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had said that the opposition would also resist any government move to dilute its stake in public sector banks below 51 per cent.

The government is likely to bring amendments to the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 and other laws such as Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970, and the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1980 in the Budget Session due to which the government's shareholding in PSBs can go down below 51 per cent.

Besides the Finance Bill, the government has also listed The Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill for introduction, consideration and passing.

The proposed legislation aims to bring more clarity and convergence in the roles of different organisations working in the field of disaster management, a Lok Sabha bulletin issued Thursday said.

The Bhartiya Vayuyan Vidheyak, 2024 seeks to replace the Aircraft Act of 1934 to provide enabling provisions for ease of doing business in the civil aviation sector.

The session beginning July 22 will conclude on August 12.

The other bills listed for introduction and passage during the session are the Boilers Bill to replace the pre-Independence era law, the Coffee (Promotion and Development) Bill and the Rubber (Promotion and Development) Bill.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has also constituted the Business Advisory Committee (BAC), which decides the parliamentary agenda.

The committee chaired by the Speaker has Sudip Bandyopadhyay (TMC), P P Chaudhary (BJP), Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu (TDP), Nishikant Dubey (BJP), Gaurav Gogoi (Congress), Sanjay Jaiswal (BJP), Dileshwar Kamait (JD-U), Bhartruhari Mahtab (BJP), Dayanidhi Maran (DMK), Baijayant Panda (BJP), Arvind Sawant (Shiv Sena-UBT), Kodikunnil Suresh (Congress), Anurag Thakur (BJP) and Lalji Verma (SP) as members.