New Delhi, August 6
The Union Cabinet has gone into an overdrive to clear pending legislations after UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi conveyed her displeasure at the slow progress in enacting laws promised in the government’s Common Minimum Programme (CMP).

Last week, the Cabinet cleared as many as eight Bills, including the Domestic Violence Bill and the amended Hindu Succession Act, which ensures equal property rights to women. Mrs Gandhi has been pressing for an early passage of these two legislations as they figure high on her priority list.

The Centre is now racing against time to finalise its flagship legislation, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, which provides for 100 days of employment to one member of a poor rural household. The centrepiece of the UPA government’s CMP, the Centre was keen to push through this law in the last Parliament session but its plans were nixed because of the Opposition boycott of standing committee meetings.

It has since been cleared by the parliamentary panel, but the legislation has gone back to the government for further amendment after Mrs Gandhi suggested that employment should be extended to all rural households instead of the poor ones, as provided for in the Bill.

The Group of Ministers, scrutinising this legislation, is learnt to have accepted the UPA Chairperson’s suggestion but the government is in a tizzy about raising the resources for the implementation of the amended Bill as costs have trebled from the earlier Rs 40,000 crore to Rs 1.5 lakh crore. Mrs Gandhi, it learnt, has made it clear that the Centre must find ways and means of raising the necessary funds. While the Finance Ministry is busy juggling its figures, uncertainty prevails over the Bill’s passage in the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament.