Bihar Assembly passes four bills without debate, amid Opposition walkout
PATNA: Bihar Legislative Assembly on Tuesday passed four bills with voice vote without any debate amid walkout by the Opposition, which wanted a debate on police action against legislators on March 23 during the Budget session during protests against the Bihar Special Armed Police Bill, 2021.
As soon as the House assembled for the second half, RJD leader Lalit Prasad Yadav stood up, raising the issue of police action and demanding debate over it. Later, other opposition members joined him and stood up. When Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha asked the members to allow the House to function as per rules and continued with the listed business, Opposition members trooped into the well shouting slogans and later staged a walkout.
Moving the Bihar Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2021, Panchayati Raj minister Samrat Choudhary said the government had to come up with an ordinance to maintain the continuity in three-tier panchayat governance, as the old Act had fixed the tenure of elected representatives to five years at the maximum and it could not be extended. “This called for a new mechanism of advisory committees having the same set of people at the helm and hence the amendment,” he said.
Education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary moved the Aryabhata Knowledge University (Amendment) Bill, 2021, necessitated due to government’s plan to create separate universities for engineering and medical education. “The objective behind setting up Aryabhatt Knowledge University in 2009 was to encourage studies and research in non-conventional subjects and new frontiers of knowledge. There is a plan to have 12 different subjects, which are related to Bihar’s needs and have great significance globally. In subjects like nano technology, river studies, climate change, things have already moved ahead, while new subjects will be added,” he said.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar also intervened, saying the very purpose of adding Aryabhatt’s name to the knowledge university was to add impetus to the objective with which it was set up. “Aryabhatt’s pioneering contributions were made on this land. Therefore, Aryabhatt’s name should always be there and abbreviation AKU should not be used. It should always be known as Aryabhatt Knowledge University,” he said.
The third bill was the Bihar Health Sciences University Bill, 2021, moved by health minister Mangal Pandey, who said it was needed in view of growing needs and rapid expansion in the field of medical education and allied fields. The minister accepted the three amendments moved by the members of the treasury benches. One of them was to keep deemed universities out of the ambit of the bill, as they were governed by separate guidelines.
“Today, Bihar has 17 government and private medical colleges, but it will increase to 28 in the next four years. Besides, there is a plan to open a number of nursing and paramedical institutes. The new university will strive to work as per modern day requirements and challenges, lay stress on research and innovation and add new subjects and courses,” he said.
Art and culture minister Alok Ranjan moved the bill for the proposed sports university, which will have its headquarters at Rajgir and encourage sporting activities and training. “Bihar has become the sixth state in the country to set up a separate sports university. It will not only provide training to aspiring sportsmen within state, but will also provide job opportunities to them,” he said.
Education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary said it was a good coincidence that Bihar Assembly had passed the Bihar Sports University Bill, 2021, at a time when the biggest sporting event Olympics was underway in Japan. “People will always relate the two to remember the passage of Sports University bill,” he said.