The Standing Committee on Chemicals and Fertilisers will meet on November 18 to address hazardous chemical safety, pollution prevention, and self-reliance strategies for India's growing medical device manufacturing industry.

Standing Committee on Chemicals and Fertilisers Meeting Scheduled

Safe handling of hazardous chemicals in industrial establishments and prevention of pollution associated with it, as well as self-reliance in the manufacturing of the medical device industry, would be the key subjects under discussion in the next meeting of the Standing Committee on Chemicals and Fertilisers scheduled for November 18.

The first meeting covering the subject ‘Safe Handling of Hazardous Chemicals in Industrial Establishments and Prevention of Pollution associated with it’ would take place around 11 am in the Parliament complex and continue till lunch with the representatives of the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers, Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, briefing the members of the committee. The next post-lunch meeting covering the subject of 'Self-reliance in manufacturing of Medical Device Industry' would start at 3 PM. The representatives of the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers, Department of Pharmaceuticals, will be briefing the committee members about the issue.

As per a circular issued by the secretariat, all the members of the committee were informed about the meeting last week, informing that the soft copies of the agenda papers for the sittings will be uploaded on the members’ portal or Sansad mail in due course. All the members have also been requested to make it convenient to attend the aforesaid sittings.

Committee Structure and Functioning

The Standing Committee on Chemicals and Fertilisers is one of the 24 departmentally related standing committees. It is serviced by Lok Sabha Secretariat. The Committee consists of 31 Members, 21 members from Lok Sabha, nominated by the Lok Sabha Speaker, from amongst the members of Lok Sabha; and 10 members from Rajya Sabha, nominated by the Rajya Sabha Chairman, from amongst the members of Rajya Sabha. The term of office of the committee is one year from the date of its constitution.

The three Departments of the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers are within the jurisdiction of the Standing Committee on Chemicals and Fertilisers: Department of Fertilisers, Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, and Department of Pharmaceuticals. Lok Sabha MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar is the chairperson of the committee constituted on September 26.

The Committee have been entrusted with the functions to consider the Demands for Grants of the three Departments of the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers and make reports on the same to the Houses; to examine the bills referred to the Committee by the Rajya Sabha Chairman or the Lok Sabha Speaker as the case may be relating to the above Ministry, and make report thereon; to consider the Annual Report of the Ministry and make reports thereon; and to consider national basic long term policy documents presented to the Houses, if referred to the Committee by the Rajya Sabha Chairman or the Lok Sabha Speaker as the case may be and make reports thereon.

Other members of the committee includes Brijmohan Agrawal, Ajay Bhatt, Robert Bruce C, Kriti Devi Debbarman, Kalyan Vaijinathrao Kale, Utkarsh Verma Madhur, Balram Naik Porika, Sudama Prasad, Eatala Rajender, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Rajesh Ranjan, Murasoli S, Abdul Rashid Sheikh, Ruchi Vira, Patel Umeshbhai Babubhai, Bharatsinhji Shankarji Dabhi, Sanjay Haribhau Jadhav, Praveen Patel, Sambit Patra, Alok Kumar Suman, Shivmangal Singh Tomar, Lingamaneni Ramesh, Naresh Bansal, Subhash Barala, Rwngwra Narzary, Manmohan Samal, Arun Singh, Tejveer Singh, Akhilesh Prasad Singh and LK Sudhish.

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