The House of Representatives accepted the principles of all three drafts of the Rail Transport Act.

The House unanimously accepted the principle of the draft of the Rail Transport Act, all 3 versions, using the Cabinet draft as the main one. The first meeting will be held on 1 Nov.The House of Representatives meeting was chaired by Mr. Pharadon Prisananantakul, the second deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, to consider the draft of the Railway Transport Act B.E. 2550 (1997). This was a continuation of last week's consideration, in which the meeting had already completed its discussion and expression of opinions and was in the voting process. There were 3 drafts in total: 1. The draft proposed by the Cabinet; 2. The draft proposed by Mrs. Manoporn Charoensri, Deputy Minister of Transport; and 3. The draft proposed by Mr. Surachet Praweenwongwut, MP for the party-list of the Prachachon Party and his team.Ms. Manop Jareonsri, Deputy Minister of Transport, said that the meeting should accept the principles of all three drafts by voting at the same time and establish a special committee to joint ly consider all three drafts, using the Cabinet's draft as the main draft.The meeting then voted to accept the three drafts in principle with 406 votes, no votes against, and 4 abstentions. A 31-member extraordinary committee was established to amend the resolution within 15 days, using the Cabinet's draft as the main consideration.Meanwhile, Mr. Pakornwut Udompipatsakul, a party-list MP for the Prachachon Party and the opposition whip, proposed that since Mr. Surachet's draft was the closest to the draft that the 25th House had already considered, he requested that Mr. Surachet's draft be used as the main draft, which would require the meeting to vote on which draft to use as the main draft. The meeting voted with 262 votes in favor to use the Cabinet's draft as the main draft, and the first committee meeting will be held on November 1 at 10:00 a.m.Source: Thai News Agency