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SYNOPSIS OF DEBATES (Proceedings other than Questions & Answers) ______

Monday, March 16, 2020 / Phalguna 26, 1941 (Saka) ______

OBITUARY REFERENCE

HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Members, I have to inform the House about the sad demise of our three former Members, Shri Ram Krishna Yadav, Shri Tapas

Paul and Shrimati Krishna Bose.

Shri Ram Krishna Yadav was a Member of 9th Lok Sabha representing

Azamgarh Parliamentary Constituency. He was a Member of Committee on

Agriculture.

Shri Ram Krishna Yadav passed away on 25th January, 2020 at ,

Uttar Pradesh at the age of 82.

Shri Tapas Paul was a Member of 15th and representing

Krishna Nagar Parliamentary Constituency of . Prior to this, he was a Member of West Bengal Legislative Assembly for two terms. Shri Paul was an active Parliamentarian who served as a Member of different Parliamentary

Standing Committees. Shri Tapas Paul was a renowned film actor who acted in more than 400 films of Bengali, Hindi and Oriya languages. He received so many film awards.

Shri Tapas Paul passed away on 18th February, 2020 at at the age of 61.

Shrimati Krishna Bose was a Member of 11th, 12th and 13th Lok Sabha representing Jadavpur Parliamentary Constituency of West Bengal. Shrimati

Krishna Bose served as a Chairperson of Committee on External Affairs and as a

Member of different Parliamentary Committees.

A well-known educationist, Shrimati Bose taught in different educational institutions for about four decades and also written so many books.

Shrimati Krishna Bose passed away on 22nd February, 2020 at at the age of 89.

We deeply mourn the loss of our former colleagues and the House convey its condolences to the bereaved families.

Thereafter, the Members stood in silence for a while.

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MATTERS UNDER RULE 377

1. SHRI ARJUN SINGH laid a statement regarding coal illegal mining in

West Bengal.

2. SHRI RAJENDRA AGRAWAL laid a statement regarding need to set up

Driving Training Centre and Automated Inspection and Certification Centre in

Meerut, .

3. SHRI KHAGEN MURMU laid a statement regarding need to implement

Ayushman Bharat Yojana in West Bengal.

4. SHRI ARUN KUMAR SAGAR laid a statement regarding need to set up a sports stadium in Shajjahanpur Parliamentary Constituency, Uttar Pradesh.

5. SHRI BHAGIRATH CHOUDHARY laid a statement regarding need to invite fresh transparent tender process for allocation of book stalls on railway station platforms in the country.

6. SHRIMATI KESHARI DEVI PATEL laid a statement regarding air connectivity between Pragyagraj and Delhi.

7. SHRIMATI RAMA DEVI laid a statement regarding need to provide adequate compensation to farmers who suffered damage to their crops caused by heavy rainfall and hailstorm in Sheohar Parliamentary Constituency, Bihar.

 Laid on the Table as directed by Chair. 8. SHRI PANKAJ CHAUDHARY laid a statement regarding acquisition of land of Swadeshi Mining and Manufacturing Company Limited in Maharajganj

Parliamentary Constituency, Uttar Pradesh.

9. SHRIMATI SHARDA ANIL PATEL laid a statement regarding need to fix the MSP of Arandi and milk in Gujarat.

10. SHRI MITESH PATEL(BAKABHAI) laid a statement regarding need to provide stoppage of various trains at Anand Railway Junction in Gujarat.

11. SHRIMATI RAKSHA NIKHIL KHADSE laid a statement regarding need to review the decision to reduce the financial grants provided to women's study centres by UGC.

12. SHRI SUBHASH CHANDRA BAHERIA laid a statement regarding need to enact population control Act in the country.

13. SHRI CHUNNI LAL SAHU laid a statement regarding implementation of double cropping programme in Mahasamund district in .

14. SHRI ASHOK KUMAR RAWAT laid a statement regarding need to set up sports stadiums in Sandila and Bilhaur in Misrikh parliamentary constituency,

Uttar Pradesh.

15. SHRI ANURAG SHARMA laid a statement regarding need to conduct employment- oriented skill development programmes for differently- abled persons in the country. 16. SHRI AJAY MISRA TENI laid a statement regarding storage of medicines for desired effect.

17. SHRI MANOJ KOTAK laid a statement regarding need to regulate the programmes telecast by web channels in the country.

18. SHRI RAJMOHAN UNNITHAN laid a statement regarding comprehensive law for combating pandemics.

19. SHRI ANTO ANTONY laid a statement regarding newly declared

National Highway 183A in Kerala.

20. DR. A. CHELLAKUMAR laid a statement regarding online sale of medicines.

21. SHRI S.R. PARTHIBAN laid a statement regarding online sale of banned, duplicate and expired medicines.

22. SHRI LAVU SRIKRISHNA DEVARAYALU laid a statement regarding approval to Disha Act.

23. PROF. SOUGATA RAY laid a statement regarding monitoring the business of private banks.

24. SHRI CHANDRA SEKHAR SAHU laid a statement regarding setting up of Green Field Airport in Gopalpur in Odisha.

25. SHRI MALOOK NAGAR laid a statement regarding need to reduce the price of petrol and diesel in the country. 26. DR. G. RANJITH REDDY laid a statement regarding Hyderabad Nizam's money in British Bank Account.

27. SHRIMATI SUPRIYA SADANAND SULE laid a statement regarding gratuity payment to LIC agents.

UNION BUDGET- 2020-21

DEMANDS FOR GRANTS- 2020-21

MINISTRY OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EMPOWERMENT - Contd.

*DR. UMESH G. JADAV

*SHRI SHRIRANG APPA BARNE

*DR. SHRIKANT EKNATH SHINDE

*SUSHRI S. JOTHIMANI

*SHRI JANARDAN SINGH SIGRIWAL

*DR. SUJAY VIKHE PATIL

*SHRIMATI RAKSHA NIKHIL KHADSE

*SHRIMATI DARSHANA VIKRAM JARDOSH

*SHRI MOHANBHAI KUNDARIYA

*KUMARI SHOBHA KARANDLAJE

*SHRI AJAY MISRA TENI

*SHRI B. MANICKAM TAGORE

*SHRIMATI POONAMBEN MAADAM

* Please see Supplement

THE MINISTER OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EMPOWERMENT (SHRI

THAAWAR CHAND GEHLOT) replying said: I would like to express my gratitude to all those hon. Members who have participated in this Debate. During the Debate, a slew of suggestions were given, the schemes of the Government were appreciated and some of the hon. Members pointed out the shortcomings of the

Budget. The Hon. Prime Minister said in his first speech- "My Government will be dedicated to the poor." I along with the Minister of State have been making efforts to translate this statement into reality under his guidance. During the last five years, we have done historic work and implemented Action Plan by virtue of which we succeeded in making 10 Guineas' Book of World Records. We accorded constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes in 2018.

This is a historic decision. A high level Board was constituted in order to implement the development work related to the de-notified, nomadic and semi- nomadic communities. We have provided 10% reservations to the economically weaker sections. Moreover, we made laws in order to bring the transgender into the mainstream. We have streamlined the laws made for protection and maintenance of the senior citizens. We have taken up big decision to implement

Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana. Under this scheme, 1,24,242 senior citizens have been benefitted and over Rs. 51 crore has been spent on this scheme. Moreover, we will try to make all the Scheduled Caste dominated villages, having population of 500

Adarsh villages by providing financial assistance under Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana by the year 2024-25. I would like to say that Rs. 10,103.57 crore has been earmarked till date for the implementation of the welfare schemes meant for

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Similarly, we have enhanced the Budget for the empowerment of the physically challenged persons. The expenditure to this end has been increased by Rs. 214.13 crore to 2931.27 crore for the period from

2014-2020 as compared to the period from 2009 to 2014. In addition to it, we are providing 6 types of financial assistance to the physically challenged persons for their educational empowerment. During the last five years and current year, 88692 physically challenged students have been provided scholarships of Rs. 259.67 crore. We are implementing Action Plans for the empowerment of the physically challenged persons by providing financial assistance through NGO under Deen

Dayal Divyang Rehabilitation Scheme (DDRS). We have formulated Action Plans even for the Skill Development Training for the physically challenged persons.

We have also prepared a National Data Base for the physically challenged persons and provided them Unique Identification Cards. So far as the scholarships for the

Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes are concerned, there are huge mess in some of the States but I am happy to tell you that we have paid all the arrears during the last two years and no amount of post metric scholarship and pre-metric scholarship is lying pending for any State upto the year 2018-19. Number of beneficiaries in the field of de-addiction has increased and if we include the current year’s numbers, it is more than six lakh. We have proposed to make the existing law relating to senior citizens better. Several schemes were not very useful. We have clubbed those schemes with others. We are making policy for the senior citizens.

The issue relating to the beggars pertains to the states. Yet, the Government issues advisory to the state Governments to ban begging. We have provided funds to set up de-addiction centers in 28 districts in Punjab and these centers are ready. The

Government provides assistance for the welfare of Scheduled Caste communities through NGOs. We are implementing a Venture Capital Fund Scheme also. Under this scheme, we support the people of Scheduled Castes in entrepreneurship. We have benefitted 15,91,950 persons through National Scheduled Castes Finance

Development Corporation as on date. We also provide special central assistance to the states. By the year 2024-25, we propose to undertake the welfare of the

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes persons by providing Rs.30 lakh to each

SC dominated village with population of more than 500.

All the cut motions moved were negatived.

All the Demands for Grants were voted in full.

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UNION BUDGET -2020-2021

DEMANDS FOR GRANTS-2020-2021

MINISTRY OF TOURISM SHRI VINCENT H. PALA initiating said: My Constituency has the heaviest rainfall in the world. It is the cleanest village in Asia and the biggest hill station in

India. So, tourism is very important. But, I am very surprised to see the budget allocation of Rs. 2499.83 crore for Tourism Ministry, which is not enough at all.

Tourism can help us in solving the problem of unemployment as it creates 400 million jobs all over the world. According to 'Forbes Magazine', is now one of the world's fastest growing markets in terms of tourism. Not only that, India is also the birth place of four main religions, namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. So, we can use this opportunity also in terms of religious tourism. We have 80 National Parks, 441 Wildlife Sanctuaries, and 36 World Heritage Sites.

Our target is to increase the tourists in India from 10 million to 20 million. But there is no coordination between the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Civil

Aviation. India is having only 1.2 per cent of the world tourism. Under Swadesh

Darshan Scheme, out of 77 projects only 9 projects have been taken up, 10 projects have not even been started. Similarly, out of 28 projects under PRASAD scheme, only 2 projects have been completed and the remaining projects have not been completed. I would request that the Government must invest more money in rural tourism. The Government has launched UDAN Scheme but the coordination among 36 tourism destinations is lacking. The Government has set up a 24X7 multilingual tourism information helpline. But this has not been properly advertised. I would like to suggest that we must have a Crisis Management Group under the Chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary to coordinate with all the concerned departments so that tourism industry can grow and tourists can feel safe in our country. Our travel agents are paying 10 per cent more tax than the travel agents abroad and this will hamper the economy of India.

SHRI RAJIV PRATAP RUDY: India is known for religious tourism, spiritual tourism, wildlife tourism, medical tourism, adventure and heritage tourism. In

Europe and other developed countries, 75 per cent revenue is earned from ecotourism in which forest and wildlife are important. What do we lack in our country? We have more than 100 National Parks. If we can tap eco-tourism then we can achieve 4 to 5 per cent of GDP through it. We have tiger tourism which we need to promote to the world. People go to Kenya and Tanzania for safari while we have all this in our country itself. If we can declare the Andaman and Nicobar

Islands as eco-friendly tourist state then we can achieve huge revenues. 4 million people visit Colosseum of Rome, 10 million people visit Great Wall of China and 3 million people visit the Pyramids but only 2.5 million people visit Taj Mahal. Even if just 1 per cent people of India will visit Taj Mahal then it will become the biggest number. China has around 3 thousand five star hotels, Turkey 800 while

India has just 400 fiver star hotels which is very less. Bihar doesn't have even a single five star hotel. In order to boost and promote domestic tourism and of course, to attract tourists from home and abroad religious tourism and festivals need to be given wide publicity. Sikkim has been declared an organic state. A massive public awareness needs to be afoot in order that the incidence of people's being affected with the diseases caused due to pesticides in food grains may be substantially curtailed. The way Fort Tourism and Heritage tourism has been cashed-in-on in Rajasthan by making them popular the world over, needs to be replicated in pursuit of tapping immense possibilities of existing religious, cultural heritage and natural characteristics in various states like that of Gujarat,

Chattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Kerala, West Bengal, Bihar etc.., The fact remains that the oldest locomotives of India has huge potential to attract tourists even today.

Besides, I am obliged to flag an important issue as well. We all are aware that the entire world is in a state of emergency and tourism is the worst affected. In such situation, this sector badly needs reliefs on a number of counts. Banks should provide concession in terms of repayment of EMIs for six months. GST tax holiday should be offered to ease the burden of this industry. TACS proposed in the Budget should be kept in abeyance.

SHRIMATI (BANERJEE): India has been endowed with better landscape compared to Switzerland. This Budget fails to honour immense potential of this sector in terms of employment generation. There has been a long pending demand for according the status Industry to the tourism sector. yet, the Budget remains silent on this count. I would like to suggest that the Central Government should come forward to extend requisite support to promote tourists' spots in West

Bengal. Likewise, tourism is the biggest opportunity to establish Kashmir financially. This seems all the more desirable in the wake of abrogation of Article

370. Security is critical to tourism. Therefore, the Government must ensure security of the tourists. The State which we wish to promote from the tourists' point of view should be accorded free location status for the purposes of the shooting of the films. India is pregnant with huge potential for being a classic wedding destination as well. This apart, on the lines of Germany our country should also organise festival of Indian antique items. Villages should be in sync with respective Panchayats. The village with certain unique features would, in all its likelihood, arouse interest among the tourist and they would look forward to visiting there. In turn there would be promotion of rural tourism and this way there would be noticeable change in the rural infrastructure as well.

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SNEHLATA SHRIVASTAVA Secretary General

**Supplement covering rest of the proceedings is being issued separately. PRICE: Rs. 12.00 © 2020 BY LOK SABHA SECRETARIAT NOTE: It is the verbatim Debate of the Lok Sabha and not the Synopsis that should be considered authoritative.

English and Hindi versions of Synopses of Lok Sabha Debates are also available at http://loksabha.nic.in.