Andhra Assembly passes 5 bills by voice vote on 2nd day

Amaravati, Dec 2 (IANS) On the second day of the Winter Session in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, five bills were passed by voice vote. The Bills that were cleared on Tuesday include AP Gaming (Amendment) Bill 2020 and AP Municipal Laws (second amendment) Bill besides three more on aquaculture.

"The amendment to the state gaming bill was necessitated to bring online gambling into its ambit as the cases of online betting have been increasing with the wide use of internet with youth and students falling prey to gambling," said an official.

Home Minister Mekathoti Sucharita said the Bill aims to mete out stringent action, penalties and longer imprisonments for online and offline gambling offences.

"Strict action would be taken against all offenders, irrespective of their social status. Recently, a distant relative of a minister was involved in such an activity and he was not spared. Our government is transparent and will not spare anyone," highlighted Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy.

Andhra Pradesh Municipal Laws (Second Amendment Bill) proposes to alter house tax structure by a nominal hike, without affecting people living in 375 sq ft houses for which it is just Rs 50 per annum.

The Assembly also passed three more bills to give impetus to aquaculture, AP Fisheries University Bill, AP Aquaculture Seed (Quality Control) Amendment Bill and AP Fish Feed (quality control) Bill.

The feed bill has a provision to set up a regulatory mechanism to check the quality of fish feed and seed.

This is aimed at addressing the losses being suffered by aquaculture farmers due to the supply of low quality fish feed while the fisheries university will come up in West Godavari district.

These three bills were also passed by voice vote.