New Delhi: The Winter Session of Parliament beginning Monday will see the government advance its reform agenda with a key bill to open the civil nuclear sector to private participation, even as the opposition prepares to confront it over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 12 states and Union territories.
The three-week session, which will have 15 sittings and conclude on December 19, follows the BJP-led NDA’s emphatic victory in the Bihar Assembly elections, a result expected to embolden the government after a largely disrupted Monsoon Session.
High on the government’s legislative agenda is ‘The Atomic Energy Bill, 2025’, which will govern the use and regulation of atomic energy and enable private players to enter parts of the civil nuclear ecosystem. Alongside this, the Higher Education Commission of India Bill and eight other draft laws are slated for introduction, including proposals to overhaul higher education governance and streamline regulation.
The government had earlier been forced to pull back a proposed bill that would have empowered the President to frame regulations directly for the Union Territory of Chandigarh, following strong objections from several parties. In a bid to ensure smoother coordination on the floor of both Houses, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju has convened a meeting of floor leaders on Sunday, ahead of the start of the session.
Opposition parties are expected to make the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of rolls a central point of attack, alleging concerns over the electoral roll update exercise, even as they also plan to raise the worsening air pollution in Delhi-NCR. The government, meanwhile, is likely to showcase its reform push through bills such as the Higher Education Commission of India Bill, which seeks to create a commission to help universities and other institutions become more autonomous and self-governing, backed by a transparent accreditation and autonomy framework.
Also listed is the National Highways (Amendment) Bill, aimed at making land acquisition for national highways faster and more transparent, and the Corporate Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2025, which proposes changes to the Companies Act, 2013, and LLP Act, 2008, to further ease doing business. The Securities Markets Code Bill, 2025, plans to merge provisions of the SEBI Act, Depositories Act and Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act into a single, streamlined code, while the government is additionally preparing changes to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, with a proposed amendment to section 34 now under scrutiny by a committee following a Supreme Court observation on company directors.
Two bills carried over from the previous session are scheduled for consideration and passage, and the first supplementary Budget for the current financial year is also on the agenda. With a packed schedule against a tight calendar, the session is expected to witness sharp exchanges as the government presses ahead with its legislative priorities and the opposition seeks to corner it on electoral and governance issues before proceedings wrap up on December 19.
(Inputs from PTI)