The decision not to form a parliamentary water select committee stays but the National Water Service Commission Bill and the National Water Services Industry Bill will be tabled in this parliamentary session.

"The cabinet will speed up the process so that the bills will be tabled in this session. If possible, the second hearing should also be tabled during the current session," Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz said in his winding up speech in Parliament today. The session is scheduled to end on Apr 28.

According to him, there is a need to speed up the reading of the bill, as requested by the king in his royal address. The king wanted the water privatisation issue to be dealt with by this year.

The bills were made possible following the amendment to the Constitution during a special parliamentary sitting last month to transfer its judicial powers on water from state to the federal government.

There will a briefing for all MPs, including the opposition party, on the water privatisation matter on Thursday.

Earlier, Backbencher Club Head Shahrir Abdul Samad (BN-Johor Bahru) called for the committee idea to be re-proposed to the cabinet and hoped that it would be set up within the next six months.

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timur) repeatedly asked whether the urgent need to table the bills is due to pressure from the water industry or because of public interests.