Though a number of bills related to pharma and health were in the offing and under different stages of legislative process, only a few of them have made it to the final list of bills to be presented during the ongoing winter session of Parliament.
According to the legislative business prepared for the session, as many as 62 new bills will be introduced. The Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill, 2009, the Transplantation of Human Organs (Amendment) Bill, 2009 and the Clinical Establishment (Registration & Regulation) Bill, 2009 are among them. However, a number of other prominent bills like those for CDA formation are missing from the list.
The session which has just begun on November 19 will conclude on December 21 after 23 sittings. The Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal met the secretaries and senior officials in different ministries to finalise the bills slated for the session. As many as 19 bills are pending both in the Lok Sabha and the Raja Sabha together. However, the CDA bill and the Clinical Establishments bills, introduced earlier, had already lapsed.
The Health Ministry will also be piloting some other bills, though not related to pharma industry during the session. The Jawahar Lal Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research (Amendment) Bill, 2009 and the Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical Education Institutions, Medical Educational Institutions and Universities Bill, 2009 are among them.
The Health Ministry has redrafted the Clinical Establishments bill to introduce mandatory registration of all healthcare establishments. The Biotechnology regulatory authority bill has been another important bill pending for long. The bill to amend the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994, aims to impose stringent penalties on the violators of the Act.
Though under the consideration of the Law Ministry for a long time and mired in controversy, the HIV/AIDS bill will not be presented during the session, despite mounting pressure by the public interest groups.