16 DEC, 2011, 03.20AM IST, ET BUREAU
NEW DELHI: Congress slept at the wheel while a parliamentary standing committee considered and rejected three important bills, including a flagship scheme favoured by the prime minister and the Gandhi family, despite enjoying a strong presence in the panel.
No effort seems to have been spent to brief the members belonging to the party as well as allies and outside supporters of the ruling coalition, as the committee, headed by BJP's Yashwant Sinha, adopted a report harshly critical of the National Identification Authority of India Bill as well as the UID scheme.
In the 31-member committee, Congress, its UPA allies and outside supporters together had 16 members. While the committee also sent back two other important bills - Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2008, and The Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2011- it's the outright rejection of the NIA Bill that has most embarrassed the government and the party.
The UID project, headed by former Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani, is widely seen as one that enjoys the blessings of the top echelons of the ruling establishment. It enjoys the PM's backing. Congress president Sonia Gandhi issued the first Aadhar number, and the party's powerful general secretary Rahul Gandhi speaks about it frequently during his rallies.
Rahul recently got Nilekani to speak about UIDAI at the national conclave of the party's student wing, National Students Union of India.
Not only is the project seen as one that will help streamline delivery of over Rs 300,000 crore worth of welfare spending, it was also seen as an early experiment in attracting private sector talent to solve administrative challenges.
The bill, that seeks to transform the UIDAI setup into a statutory authority, came in for rough treatment at the hands of the panel. "The committee would urge the government to reconsider and review the UID scheme as also the proposals contained in the bill in all its ramifications and bring forth a fresh legislation before Parliament," Sinha wrote in his concluding remarks.
Congress MPs now complain about the manner in which the report was adopted. "I requested the chairman that we may adopt the report in the next meeting of the committee as we didn't have sufficient time to study the draft report. He did not listen to me," said member and Congress spokesperson Rashid Alvi, whose dissent note forms one of the only three dissent notes on the report (only two are from Congress MPs).
"The draft report was circulated just a day in advance. While the Parliament is in session, if you get three bulky reports, where is the time to study? Usually such reports are circulated at least a week in advance," said Manicka Tagore, the other Congress MP who dissented formally.
The final meeting of the committee took place on December 8, when Parliament came back from prolonged logjam and discussed price rise. Many members chose to attend the house instead of the committee meeting. "The SP and BSP members were neutralised," said a member of the committee who requested anonymity but belongs neither to Congress nor to BJP.
He declined to elaborate but seemed to refer to a backroom deal where the two parties that are outside supporters of the UPA were persuaded not to object to the report. With elections in UP approaching and Rahul raising the electoral pitch against the two parties, it may not have taken much convincing anyway.
Yashwant Sinha says the complaints are without merit. Responding to Alvi's complaint that his request about adopting the report on a later date went unheeded, Sinha said procedurally that could be allowed only if someone points out a factual error in the preparation of the report.
Sinha added it was normal practice to circulate the draft report just a day in advance. "If they knew the reports were going to be adopted, and they did not read it, it just means they failed in doing their duty," Sinha said.
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