117 hours of parliament lost to frequent disruptions (To go with ‘Parliament session ends with little business conducted’)
May 7th, 2010 - 10:59 pm ICT by IANSNew Delhi, May 7 (IANS) More than 117 hours or over 30 percent of the total scheduled 385 hours were lost during the 2010 budget session of parliament due to frequent disruptions and protests.
The session began Feb 22 and ended May 7 with a month-long recess in between.
Apart from budget discussions, the session saw debates on key issues like price rise, phone tapping and Maoist insurgency.
Following are the highlights of the session during which only six of the total 27 scheduled bills were passed.
- Average attendance in the Lok Sabha was 82 percent, while in the Rajya Sabha it was 78 percent
- The highest attendance of average 90 percent was witnessed when the Finance Bill was debated and put to vote.
- On 8 days of the 32-day long session, Lok Sabha met for less than an hour. The Rajya Sabha met for less than an hour on 9 days.
- Total productive time in the Lok Sabha was 138 hours - 66 percent of scheduled time. In the Rajya Sabha it was 130 hours - 74 percent of scheduled time.
- Parliament was disrupted over issues such as price rise, Women’s Reservation Bill and the IPL controversy.
- Only 6 of the proposed 27 bills were passed by both houses. Bills passed included the Tamil Nadu Legislative Councils Bill 2010, the Employees State Insurance (Amendment) Bill, 2009, and the National Green Tribunal Bill, 2009.
- The Lok Sabha passed 12 bills this session. Five of these bills were passed with less than 15 minutes of discussion each.
- The women’s reservation bill was debated for almost four hours before being passed by the Rajya Sabha March 9, amidst numerous disruptions.
- Parliament debated the National Green Tribunal Bill for over seven hours.
- In the Rajya Sabha no question could be answered orally on 13 days out of 30 due to disruptions. This happened in the Lok Sabha on 8 days.
- Of the total 620 starred questions admitted in the Rajya Sabha, only 92 were called in the house (14 percent of the total).
(Source PRS Legislative Research, an independent think tank that tracks the functioning of parliament)
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Tags: amendment bill, budget discussions, budget session, disruptions, finance bill, legislative councils, Lok Sabha, long session, maoist, parliament session, phone tapping, productive time, rajya sabha, recess, reservation bill, session ends, seven hours, starred questions, state insurance, tamil nadu