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National Legislative Index proposed, panel to be set up, says Lok Sabha speaker
Ahead of Budget session of Parliament, Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla cautions against planned disruptions
Ahead of the Budget session of Parliament, Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla on Wednesday said disruptions of the House are not appropriate for the country’s democracy. He appealed to leaders of all political parties to cooperate in ensuring smooth functioning of the House.
The Lok Sabha speaker was responding to questions while speaking to the media after the conclusion of the 86th All India Presiding Officers’ Conference in Lucknow.
The budget session of Parliament would commence on January 28 and the Union finance minister would present the annual budget for 2026-27 on February 1, he added.
The creation of a National Legislative Index has been proposed to benchmark the performance of legislative bodies on the basis of objective parameters to introduce a conducive environment for healthy competition and serving public interest with greater accountability, he also said.
This was reflected in one of the six resolutions adopted at the conference. Birla said a committee (on the National Legislative Index) would be constituted in a week to set standards for a healthy competition.
The conference held discussions on key points that included use of technology for transparent, efficient and people centric legislative procedures, capacity building of legislatures for increasing efficiency of legislative institutions and making the legislators responsible to the people, he said.
He also said the presiding officers should be impartial. Efforts should be made to evolve a culture for ensuring that business of the House was not interrupted, he added.
Displaying placards and raising slogans was not good for democracy and discussions were held on ways to ensure that disruptions are not caused in the House even for a day, he added.
Birla said the first resolution called upon all the state legislatures to debate the development works being undertaken in their respective states and ‘conduct business in such a way that helps achieve the national goal of Viksit Bharat by 2047’.
Another resolution was about continuing to harness technology for improving ease of doing legislative business with the objective of building an effective connection between the people and their legislatures.
The best available tools should be used with adequate precaution and responsibility along with credibility and morality should be ensured, he said.
Birla said the presiding officers have resolved to continue providing leadership to all participatory institutions, including the panchayati raj institutions, so as to deepen and strengthen the democratic ethos of the nation.
“The presiding officers have resolved to continue supporting capacity building of legislators and parliamentarians in efficient use of technology and strengthen research support with digitisation of proceedings having digital libraries,” he said.
An earlier presiding officers’ conference held at Lucknow in 2015 had resolved to make the legislatures paperless and all the states have achieved this objective, he said.
He said efforts are underway to bring all the legislatures on one platform and one would be able to watch proceedings of all legislatures live on one single platform.
Efforts were also underway to work out model rules for all the legislatures and a committee headed by UP assembly speaker Satish Mahana has held its meetings on this issue, he added.
Rules would be worked out in 2026 and the legislatures would have to adopt these rules to implement them.
WHAT THE SIX RESOLUTIONS SAY
Resolution No. 1: Focus on Viksit Bharat goal
“We, the Presiding Officers of legislative bodies of India unequivocally resolve at the 86th All India Presiding Officers’ Conference to re-dedicate ourselves to conducting business of our respective legislatures in a way that helps achieve the national goal of Viksit Bharat by 2047.”
Resolution No. 2: Consensus on minimum sittings
“We, the Presiding Officers, further resolve to create consensus among all political parties to increase the number of sittings of our state legislative bodies to a minimum of thirty (30) sittings in a year and to constructively utilise the time and resources for legislative business so that our democratic institutions are more accountable to the people.
Resolution No. 3: ‘Will continue to harness tech’
“We, the Presiding Officers of legislative bodies in India, resolve to continue to harness technology for improving the ease of doing legislative business with the objective of building an effective connect between the people and their legislatures and delivering meaningful participatory governance.
Resolution No. 4: Leadership to participatory institutions
“We, the Presiding Officers, resolve to continue to provide exemplary leadership to all participatory governance institutions so as to deepen and strengthen the democratic ethos of our nation.”
Resolution No. 5: Support to capacity building
We, the Presiding Officers, resolve to continue to support capacity building of our parliamentarians and legislators, particularly in efficient use of digital technology and to strengthen research support for effective participation of our public representatives in debates and discussions in our legislatures.
Resolution No. 6: National Legislative Index for health competition
“We, the Presiding Officers, resolve to create a National Legislative Index to benchmark performance of our Legislative Bodies on the basis of objective parameters so as to introduce a conducive environment for healthy competition for serving the public interest with greater accountability.”
FOUR CONFERENCES HOSTED BY UP
Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly speaker Satish Mahana said Uttar Pradesh has so far hosted four All India Presiding Officers Conferences held in 1961, 1985, 2015 and 2026.
