NA passed 110 bills in last 37 months

LAHORE: Prior to the historic and eventful joint parliamentary session held on Wednesday, which saw the approval of around two dozen extremely vital bills including the ones pertaining to the use of Electronic Voting Machines in future ballot exercises and granting voting rights to the overseas Pakistanis, etc, the legislators in the National Assembly of Pakistan had passed 110 draft statutes in just over 37 months under the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) regime between October 3, 2018 and November 9, 2021, research shows.

The passage of 110 bills in 37 months thereby means that 2.97 bills per month, or one every 10 days at an average, were approved by the lower house of the Parliament headed by Prime Minister Imran Khan.

While 10 of these bills were passed during the first parliamentary year (August 13, 2018 to August 12, 2019), 30 won the nod of treasury benches mostly during the second parliamentary year (August 13, 2019 to August 12, 2020), 60 bills were approved during the third parliamentary year (August 13, 2020 to August 12, 2021) and another 10 draft statutes were tabled and ratified by the current legislators during the still-ongoing fourth parliamentary year, which had commenced on August 13, 2021.

On Wednesday, despite the pandemonium, chaos and mayhem on the National Assembly's floor, Premier Imran Khan-led government managed to win the support of its like-minded policymakers on providing the right of review and reconsideration to the under-arrest Indian spy Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav case to bring into effect the judgment of the International Court of Justice, the SBP Banking Services Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2021 regarding autonomy of the Central Bank, the Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) Bill, 2021, the Corporate Restructuring Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2021, the Financial Institutions (Secured Transactions) (Amendment) Bill, 2021, the Islamabad Rent Restriction (Amendment) Bill, 2021, the University of Islamabad Bill, 2021, the Loans for Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Purposes (Amendment) Bill, 2021, the Port Qasim Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the all-important Gwadar Port Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2021, etc.