Forest Conservation Amendment Bill among 16 new legislations to be introduced in Winter Session

As many as 16 new bills would be introduced in the forthcoming Winter session of Lok Sabha, including The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2022; The Coastal Aquaculture Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2022 and The Multi-State Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2022 among others.

The Centre aims to introduce these 16 bills for consideration and passing according to the Lok Sabha bulletin.

The Winter session of Parliament is scheduled to begin from December 7.

The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2022, seeks to amend the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, and envisages to remove ambiguity in the applicability of the provisions of Act, promote plantation in non-forest areas and conserve the forests.

The Coastal Aquaculture Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2022 has a four-fold objective.

It aims to revise the provisions of the Act so as to reduce the regulatory compliance burden to the stakeholders without diluting the core principles of environment protection in the coastal areas.

The bill also looks at decriminalising the offence(s) under the Act, to expand the scope of the Act to bring all coastal aquaculture activities under its ambit, and aims to remove difficulties and regulatory gaps in the Act for the effective implementation, and to facilitate ease of doing business.

The Multi-State Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2022 seeks to strengthen governance, enhancing transparency, increasing accountability and reforming electoral process in the Multi-State Cooperative Societies by supplementing existing legislation and incorporating the provisions of 97th Constitutional amendment.

The bill also aims to improve the monitoring mechanism and ensure ease of doing business for multi-state cooperative societies.

Some other key bills to be introduced during the forthcoming session are: The Trade Marks (Amendment) Bill, 2022'; The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) (Amendment) Bill, 2022; The Cantonment Bill 2022, The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) (Amendment) Bill, 2022 and The National Dental Commission Bill, 2022 among others.

Apart from these, the Centre also plans to bring in the Winter session -- The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Fifth Amendment) Bill, 2022; The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Fourth Amendment) Bill, 2022; The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Third Amendment) Bill, 2022 and The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Second Amendment) Bill, 2022.