Telangana adopts law on dangerous activities

Hyderabad: The Assembly on Thursday adopted The Telangana Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Dacoits, Drug offenders, Goondas, Immoral traffic offenders and Land grabbers (Amendment) Bill, 2017 amidst Opposition from the Congress and the BJP.

The two parties staged a walkout to protest the failure of the government to implement the ordinance to this effect that was brought more than six months ago.

Home minister Nayani Narasimha Reddy refuted the allegations and said illegal activities had come down after the ordinance came into force.

“Since the Assembly was not in session when the ordinance was brought, we are replacing it with an Act. The police could successfully check these illegal activities by invoking the PD Act after the ordinance was issued,” Mr Reddy said.

He added that the existing Act was made in 1986 and the amendment was necessitated to suit the present needs.

“The cases of adulteration of food, seeds, land grabbing, online gambling, sexual harrassment, fake certificates/ documents, immoral trafficking have increased over the years. With IT and online technology, the cyber crimes have increased. There is no scope in the existing Act to check these activities," Mr Reddy said.

The House also adopted the Telangana Road Development Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2017 for development of roads and highways by securing funds from financial institutions. It adopted the Shops an Establishments (Amend-ment) Act, 2017 to give instant licences to shops and commercial establishments to launch their businesses without waiting for a month or so to get approvals as part of Ease of Doing Business.

Mr Reddy said a provisional licence will be given with which they can launch activities and offiicials will take up inspections later and give a permanent licence. The new Act will also allow shops to run 24x7 for 365 days after meeting certain conditions.