NEW DELHI: Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi announced here on Tuesday, the last day of the winter session of Parliament, that the Government would complete consultation work on Women's Reservation Bill during the intersession and "positively" bring in the legislation during the budget session in February.

The next session "we will bring the women's bill, we will bring it, we will bring it," he repeated thrice to emphasise the point.

It was part of the National Common Minimum Programme and the United Progressive Alliance wanted to complete most of the legislative processes related to the NCMP before it completed three years in office.

The Minister also indicated that in the next session the Government would make some announcements related to the Sachar Committee although it was not obliged to give an action taken report. These announcements could come from the Ministry of Finance.

The basic point was that some "action" would be taken to set right the unequal development of the minorities, he suggested.

Separately, at his end-of-session press conference, the Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee said the issue of opening up proceedings of Parliamentary Standing Committees to media in a limited way would be taken up during the budget session.

Mr. Chatterjee said the Leader of the Opposition, L.K. Advani, had agreed with his suggestion that the proceedings of the committees where evidence was recorded could be opened up.

The Speaker said he would now take up the issue with the chairmen of the committees ahead of the budget session.

The Speaker said although the average number of sittings was around 85 days, Parliament did a lot of its work through committees where issues and department budgets are discussed in detail.

"Please have debates and not disturbances," he said adding that no one could say that he had disallowed the opposition from raising any issue during the last nine sessions of the Lok Sabha. During this period, he allowed six adjournment motions moved by the Opposition as against just four adjournment motions admitted during the 13th Lok Sabha.

Similarly, the House has taken up 96 calling attention motions till the end of the 9th session of the 14th Lok Sabha as against 36 during the life of the previous House.

Mr. Chatterjee said while the House had lost over 24 hours due to disturbances, it made it up by sitting late for nearly 26 hours.

20 bills passed

Earlier, Mr. Dasmunsi pointed out that although the winter session had been disrupted frequently, it had passed 20 bills, including some important ones related to child marriage prevention, rights of forest dwellers, reservation for backward classes in Central educational institutions and essential commodities.

The Speaker said that he plans to have a one-day session at least to discuss and debate women and children's issues.

He said following his suggestion, the Lok Sabha Secretariat was making arrangements for a children's corner in the library.

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