Chandigarh: On the last day of its Budget Session, Haryana Assembly today passed within two hours 16 bills, including those dealing with timely delivery of services and protection of street vendors.
Before the House was adjourned sine die at the end of the session spread over 12 sittings, the House passed the Haryana Right to Service Bill, 2014, to ensure delivery of services to eligible persons within fixed time limits.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala told the House that timely delivery of services is the cornerstone of good governance.
The bill states that any violation of the time limit, which is to be specified later for each service, in providing a service would be treated as a grievance with a multi-tier mechanism being set up for time-bound grievance redressal.
Non-compliance and mala fide action would lead to penalty or disciplinary action against the defaulter.
The state government will constitute the Haryana Right to Service Commission, on whose recommendation the state government will notify the services and the time limits for their delivery.
The Assembly also passed the Haryana Municipal Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Bill, 2014.
It will allow the state government to regulate street vending and protect the interests of street vendors by providing them identity cards and protecting them from harassment by officials.
As per the Haryana Management of Civic Amenities and Infrastructure Deficient Municipal Areas (Special Provisions) Amendment Bill, 2014, the cut-off date for notifying civic amenities and infrastructure deficient areas has been changed from June 30, 2009, to January 1, 2014.
The bill aims at providing essential civic amenities and infrastructure in municipal areas lacking such facilities.
So far, 875 colonies have been declared as civic amenities and infrastructure deficient areas in the state.
The Assembly also passed the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas (Amendment) Bill, 2014, to increase the initial validity period of the licence for the development of colonies in urban areas from four to five years.
However, in order to eliminate any loss of revenue to the state as licence renewal fee over the extended validity, a corresponding increase of not less than 25 per cent of the prevailing rates for the same was also made.
The Haryana Private Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2014, was also passed by the Assembly.
The House was informed that there is a demand from some of these universities that the provisions for off-campus centres and offshore campuses be restored so that they could reach out to more students.
It was thus decided to allow private universities only one off-campus centre within the state after they fulfilled the parameters enshrined in the Act.
Further, to enable private universities to extend operations to other countries, it was decided that a provision for offshore campuses would be incorporated after obtaining permission from, among others, the University Grants Commission, the Union government and the government of the host country.
The Haryana Clinical Establishment (Registration and Regulation) Bill, 2014, was also passed with a view to ensuring a uniform standard of services being provided by clinical facilities in the state.
Now, no clinical centre in Haryana can be established unless it has been registered in accordance with the provisions of the bill.
However, existing clinical establishments could be allowed provisional registration to carry out their business. The clinical establishments would be given registration for a period of seven years after complying with the standards set by a state council constituted under the bill.
Haryana State Legislature (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Bill, 2014, was also passed.
Under the new legislation, the office of the Political Adviser to the Chief Minister was also included in Section-3 of the Haryana State Legislature (Prevention of Disqualification) Act, 1974, which provides exemption to holders of certain offices of profit from disqualification after being elected as, or for being a member of, the state legislature.
The House also passed the Punjab New Capital (Periphery) Control (Haryana Amendment) Bill, 2014, and the Indira Gandhi University, Meerpur (Amendment) Bill, 2014.
