BJP meets Pranab over N-bill
Senior BJP leaders, including its parliamentary party chairman L.K. Advani, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, her counterpart in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley and senior leaders Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday met finance minister Pranab Mukherjee. Sources said BJP leaders met Mr Mukherjee to discuss the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Bill, 2010.
The bill is headed for further delay in view of lack of consensus in the parliamentary panel which is examining it. The parliamentary standing committee on science and technology was to submit its report to Parliament on Thursday, but decided to defer it by a week as it failed to bridge the differences among members on the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Bill, 2010.
The BJP is against the bill and had said if needed, it would even give a dissent note on the report of the parliamentary committee looking into the bill if its concerns are not taken into account by the government. The party has demanded a complete re-draft of the bill and raised questions over key provisions, including a cap on the compensation to be paid in event of a nuclear accident and acceding to the Convention on Supplementary Compensation.
Of the other demands that the main Opposition has put in regard to this bill are that existing nuclear power plants be covered under the liability legislation. The party also wants the “claims commissioner” to be the final authority in deciding the compensation and where negligence on part of the operator or the supplier need not be proved. It also wants unlimited liability in case of a nuclear accident as government itself is the operator of nuclear power plants.
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