House clocks the best performance in 49 years with 9.5 starred questions orally replied every day
A AKHTER / NEW DELHI
Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu described the winter session of the House that concluded on Friday (Dec 13) as one marked by ‘seriousness and brevity’ and lauded the members for turning out near 100% productivity.
In his concluding remarks in the House, Mr Naidu said that the historic 250th session, succeeding a highly productive 249th session was evidence of steadying the ship of Rajya Sabha, which he said was passing through stormy waters for quite some time. He hoped that this new normal would prevail.
- Mr Naidu informed the House that as against the total scheduled available time of 108 hours 33 minutes during the winter session with 20 sittings, the House functioned for 107 hours 11 minutes resulting in productivity of 99%. He further noted that the last monsoon session with over 100% productivity succeeded by equally effective monsoon session was perhaps the first time that the House functioned so well for two consecutive sessions.
- “A total of 11 hours 47 minutes, accounting for about 11% of the available time of the House has been lost due to interruptions. Spurred by the sense of duty, the members, however, sat for 10 hours 52 minutes beyond the scheduled hours, resulting in productivity of close to 100% during the session”, Mr Naidu stated in the House. He said that he was broadly happy with the performance of the House during winter session but for some disappointment on the last day today which could have been avoided.
- The Chairman informed the House that during the winter session, 39% of the total functional time of the House has been spent on legislative business, 25.40% on raising and discussing matters of urgent public importance under various instruments, 13% on Question Hour and 5% on Private Members Bills. The House discussed the state of economy under Short Duration Discussion besides the Pegasus spyware issue and completion of major irrigation projects under two Calling Attention Notices. The Chairman said that 15 Bills were passed during the winter session and the discussions were qualitative as “they have brought out the best from all sides of this august House. Spirited arguments and counter arguments were made from both the sides. While the opposition flagged their concerns, the treasury benches sought to address them in equal spirit. This heightened quality of debates deservedly got the media space proving a point that it is not disruptions alone that fetch space (in the media) but meaningful debates get even more.”
- Referring to the brevity dimension of the session, Mr Naidu informed the House that it has proved to be the best in the last 49 years for which data is available with 9.5 questions orally replied per day as against the general trend of 4 to 5. 171 of the Starred Questions, accounting for 67% of the total 255 Questions scheduled have been orally answered. Shri Naidu complemented the Members and the Ministers for the same by being brief with the questions and replies. 199 Zero Hour and 115 Special Mentions were made at the rate of a record 14 and 7 respectively per day as against 9 and 5.50 during the last session.
- Expressing happiness over rising number of members speaking in native Indian languages like Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali and Santhali, for the first time in 67 years during this session, Chairman Shri Naidu said, “In fact, I am keen to conduct the proceedings of the House in my native language Telugu for a full day and hope to do so soon.”
- The Chairman expressed happiness over all sections of the House collectively demonstrating that Parliamentary democracy is more about contestation of ideas and ideologies than confrontation which carries a tinge of conflict in its womb saying that this was born out by the high quality of debates on several occasions. He also complemented the members for demonstrating their resolve to send out a positive message in the context of public disapproval of the dys-functionality that has come to mark the legislatures across the country.
- Referring to passing of a record 4 Bills on the penultimate day of the session with detailed discussion by sitting for about 3 hours beyond the scheduled time, Mr Naidu said the 15 Bills passed by the House include the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, The Constitution (126th Amendment) Bill for extending reservation for SCs & STs in the Legislatures by another 10 years, the Bill banning E-cigarettes, the International Financial Services Centre Bill and The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill. He in fact noted that the Transgender Persons Bill was the first relating to transgender persons.
- Reiterating his concern over the functioning of Department Related Standing Committees, Chairman urged the leaders and members to take the meetings of Committees with the seriousness they deserved. He said that during the special discussion on the occasion of 250th session of Rajya Sabha, over 80 suggestions have been made by the members for more effective functioning of the House and they were under his consideration.