Parliament on Tuesday passed as many as 11 Bills, three of them related to the crucial labour sector and the fourth one with regard to essential commodities without the participation of the Opposition.

One of those Bills will allow companies to hire and fire at will if the staff strength is less than 300. The other one will virtually decriminalise hoarding of what were defined essential commodities. While the Bill will decide the fate of tens of thousands of workers and millions of farmers, they met with no scrutiny from Opposition parties.

The Centre used the Opposition’s decision to boycott both Houses of Parliament to rush through these Bills. The Rajya Sabha passed seven Bills, and the Lok Sabha passed four Bills, including three Bills on labour sector.

The three labour sector Bills passed in the Lok Sabha are: Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020l; the Industrial Relations Code 2020 and the Code on Social Security 2020.

Later the Lok Sabha also passed Jammu & Kashmir Official Language (Amendment) Bill which makes five languages as official languages in the State. Earlier only Urdu was considered as the only official language. As per the new Bill apart from Urdu, Kashmiri, Hindi, Dogri and Punjabi will be official language.

Rajya Sabha passed seven Bills, which include Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2020.

The other Bills passed by the RS are the Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2020; the Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation and Amendment of Certain Provisions) Bill, 2020; the Appropriation (No.3) Bill, 2020; the Appropriation (No.4) Bill, 2020; the National Forensic Sciences University Bill, 2020 and the Rashtriya Raksha University Bill, 2020.

The third farm sector Bill passed by the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday will remove cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion and potatoes from the list of essential commodities. The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, which was approved by the lower house on September 15, was approved by a voice vote in the Rajya Sabha. The Bill replaces an Ordinance promulgated in June. The Bill is also aimed at removing fears of private investors of excessive regulatory interference in their business operations.

Replying to a short debate, Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Danve Raosaheb Dadarao said the stock limit conditions imposed through the law were hindering investment in the agriculture infrastructure.

The amendments to the six-and-half-decade law provides that stock holding limit on commodities will only be imposed under exceptional circumstances like national calamities, famine with a surge in prices, the Minister said.

Banking Regulation Bill intended to bring the co-operative banks engaged in banking operations under the RBI's supervision. The amendment to the Companies Bill intended to decriminalise many provisions in the Act. Taxation amendments were related to the inclusion of giving tax concessions including the newly floated controversial PM Cares Fund.