Rajya Sabha passes street vendors bill, three others

The Rajya Sabha Wednesday passed four bills, including the street vendors protection bill, without debate following a broad consensus in the house over their passage.

The bills passed were the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2013, the Governors (Emoluments, Allowances and Privileges) Amendment Bill, 2013, the Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University Bill, 2012 and the National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (Amendment) Bill, 2013.

All four bills have already been passed by the Lok Sabha.

The street vendors bill, which was pushed by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, aims to protect the livelihood rights of street vendors as well as regulate street vending through demarcation of vending zones, conditions for and restrictions on street vending.

Any person intending to undertake street vending needs to register with the Town Vending Committee. He may then apply for a vending certificate that will be issued based on various criteria.

The Governors (Emoluments, Allowances and Privileges) amendment seeks to provide secretarial staff and other benefits to former governors.

The bill seeks to amend the Governors (Emoluments, Allowances and Privileges) Act, 1982, under which each governor is entitled to an emolument of Rs.1,10,000 per month. Ex-governors are entitled only to medical benefits.

The bill seeks to provide certain other pension and post-retirement benefits to ex-governors. It also amends the act to provide that the ex-governor shall be entitled to one personal assistant for the rest of his life.

The Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University Bill, 2012, seeks to establish an agricultural university in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh.

The jurisdiction of the university shall extend to Bundelkhand region (covering seven districts in Uttar Pradesh and six in Madhya Pradesh).

The National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (Amendment) Bill, 2013, provides for conversion of the Bengal Engineering Science University, Sibpur into a central institute - the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology.

There was consensus on all these bills among all parties, and the house decided to pass them without debate.

Two other bills were also introduced in the upper house.

The Tribunals, Appellate Tribunals and Other Authorities (Conditions of Service) Bill, 2014 and the Food Safety and Standards (Amendment) Bill, 2014 were introduced in the upper house.