GoM puts off meeting on convergence

(Posted on 4 January 1:30 pm)

The meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on convergence, scheduled for Thursday, has been postponed till further notice.

The dilly-dallying on the issue raises serious doubts regarding Minister for Information Technology Pramod Mahajan's assurance in New Delhi on Wednesday. He said the Government would try its best to introduce the bill in the Budget session. "We will introduce the Bill in the Budget session. It will then go to the standing committee. We hope to clear it either in the Monsoon session or the Winter session this year,'' he said.

Mahajan said that it was yet to be decided who would pilot the bill in Parliament. The three ministries directly involved with the bill are the ministries of Information & Broadcasting, Communications and Information Technology.

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Sushma Swaraj had said in Bangalore almost a month ago (9 December) that the Government proposed to introduce the bill during the budget Session. Since then the GoM has not met.

The GoM last met on 6 December and sent the Convergence Bill draft back to jurist Fali Nariman who headed the sub-group which wrote it in the first place.

So where is the redrafted draft. Last heard the GoM was slated to meet once again on 21 December and send the redrafted draft to the Cabinet. That meeting was also deferred. The reason - members of the group were busy with Parliament proceedings.

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