First House panel to discuss preparedness

ON JULY 10

NEW DELHI: The Jairam Rameshled science and technology committee will be the first parliamentary panel to debate India’s preparedness to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, when it meets on July 10.

In its first meeting after the pandemic emerged, the standing committee will discuss the broad topic of “Preparedness to deal with Covid and other pandemic in future”.

While the panel will briefly look back at how the country has tackled the disease, primarily to draw important lessons, “we will also look at the post-covid situation as well (future) preparedness for such pandemics,” said a member of the panel who asked not to be named. The focus will sharply remain on boosting India’s research and technological capabilities to fight pandemics.

After the budget session of Parliament abruptly came to an end on March 23, no department-related standing committee has met due to lockdown restrictions. India imposed a 68-day lockdown, in four phases , starting March 25. It ended on May 31. Some panels have consulted members through email for presenting reports and a few committee meetings have been scheduled in the next few days but their agenda is not directly related to Covid. The science and technology panel will look into various aspects related to the pandemic. “It will take an overall look at the country’s capabilities to tackle a pandemic which will also include the research on vaccine and production of personal protection equipment,” said the member cited above.

The panel may also stress on the need to strengthen India’s vaccine programme so that the country might be in a better position if a new virus arrives at Indian shores.the panel will not focus so much on health, said the member, because Parliament has a separate committee on health affairs.

Meanwhile, the Lok Sabha secretariat issued guidelines for committee meetings on Friday that said not more than five officials should be called for deposition and if more officers come, they will have to sit outside and wait for their turn. There will not be any verbatim reporting service and no papers will be circulated physically. The members have also been advised to use hand sanitizer and adhere to social distancing norms.