E-Paper
Fewer disruptions do not improve house debate score
NEW DELHI: The time parliamentarians spend on discussing legislation is getting shorter.
NEW DELHI: The time parliamentarians spend on discussing legislation is getting shorter.
The Lok Sabha passed 72 bills since May 2014, of which exactly a third were discussed for less than an hour. The case was similar with 22 of the 63 legislations passed by the Upper House during this period.
Data provided by PRS Legislative Research shows that during the previous UPA regime, Parliament passed 27 bills within five minutes and 21 others under 30 minutes.
The government believes disruptions leave less time for Parliament to take up its legislative agenda, resulting in clipped discussions. Statistics, however, disagree with their contention.
Though less time was lost to disruptions during the 16th Lok Sabha as compared to the 15th, it didn’t result in better discussion on bills. An average of 42.5% time in the Lok Sabha and 37.7% time in the Rajya Sabha was lost to disruptions under the UPA-II (from 2009 to 2014). In comparison, the nine sessions of Parliament from May 2014 to August 2016 saw just 1% of time being wasted in the Lok Sabha and 27% in the Rajya Sabha.
