First Private Member’s Bill submitted in Bengal Assembly

Kolkata, Nov 22 A Private Member Bill titled 'West Bengal Protection of Childhood Bill, 2024', was placed at the business advisory committee meeting of the Legislative Assembly on Friday.

Incidentally, the bill placed by the BJP’s Chief Whip in the state assembly Shankar Ghosh, is the first Private Member Bill that has been proposed during the current Trinamool Congress regime that started in 2011 ending the 34-year Left Front rule in West Bengal.

However, despite the bill being presented at the business advisory committee meeting of the Assembly on Friday there is hardly any chance for discussion in the forthcoming winter session of the Assembly starting from Monday. This is because any private member bill has to go through a long process before it comes up for discussion on the floor of the house.

As per the rule, first, the proposed bill has to be sent to the state legal affairs department for clearance. After getting it cleared from that department, the proposed bill will go to the office of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her concurrence.

If the Chief Minister approves then it will be sent to the office of Governor C.V. Ananda Bose. Finally, if the same gets clearance from Raj Bhavan the proposed Private Member Bill will come up for discussion on the floor of the house.

According to the Speaker of House Biman Bandopadhyay, since this is the first Private Member Bill that has been submitted to his office during his tenure as Speaker, he is looking at the Bill quite intensively.

“This Bill can come for discussion on the floor of the house after going through a particular process which is currently on in case of this bill,” he said.

The proposed bill has details on the necessary steps to be taken in the sphere of child development namely education, the creation of an ideal academic ambience, bringing down dropout rates and uniformity in school hours among others.