Statistics don’t lie, Parliament doesn’t work

According to @PRSlegislative on twitter, 11 bills were introduced and 14 passed by the Lok Sabha through the current session. Only 59 of 500 questions raised were answered in Question Hour (in the Rajya Sabha, which has been more productive, 65 out of 500 questions raised in Question Hour were answered).

According to the Rajya Sabha chairman in his valedictory remarks, “Only 27% of time allocated for discussion of bills was taken up.”

“No business was conducted on 10 days of the session. 53 hours lost to disruptions,” says the Rajya Sabha chairman.

Three bills were introduced and nine passed/returned in the Rajya Sabha throughout the monsoon session.

The Rajya Sabha chairman said, in his valedictory remarks, “This is a sad commentary on the right and duty of members to participate in the house”.

This is not the worst performance from our Parliamentarians. “This session, Lok Sabha had been scheduled to work for 156 hours and Rajya Sabha for 130 hours. However, the actual productive time was 104 hours in Lok Sabha and 81 hours in Rajya Sabha,” says PRS Legislative Research.

The worst performance was recorded in the Winter Session of 2010, when both Houses were frequently disrupted over the demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe into the 2G scam, says PRS.

What does all this mean? “Parliament spends Rs 29,000 on every minute of its functioning. Loss of an hour’s productivity sets Indian citizens back by Rs 17.4 lakh,” says a Yahoo! India report . The loss due to non-working of Parliament in the winter session of Parliament is estimated at Rs230 crore, according to the report.