Om Birla hints at winter session in new Parliament building, terms structure 'new symbol of India'

Work on the new Parliament building is progressing as per schedule and satisfaction. As per the current pace of progress, the construction work will be completed by October this year. After holding necessary trials, the winter session of the Parliament this year will be held in the new building," said Birla to ETV Bharat in New Delhi.

New Delhi:Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is optimistic about hosting the winter session of the Parliament in the new Parliament building. "Work on the new Parliament building is progressing as per schedule and satisfaction. As per the current pace of progress, the construction work will be completed by October this year. After holding necessary trials, the winter session of the Parliament this year will be held in the new building," said Birla to ETV Bharat in New Delhi.

He said that the effort is on to build a state-of-the-art new Parliament building, which will be a symbol of a new and self-reliant India in a very short period of time. "The new building would be a green building equipped with necessary facilities for environmental and energy conservation. The new building will have a seating capacity of 888 members in the Lok Sabha chamber, and during a joint session of both the Houses, 1272 members can be seated. The Rajya Sabha chamber will have seating arrangements for 384 members," Birla said.

He said that the new building is being made techno-friendly for MPs. "Member's desk will be equipped with a multimedia screen through which they will be able to vote in the House, register attendance, and request for an opportunity to speak in the House," Birla said. The Lok Sabha Speaker who has recently completed three years in the office said that several critical and important decisions have been taken including expanding the reach of the Parliament Library to the people.

Keeping this in mind, a decision was taken to provide access to the Parliament Library to all through the online system. The online portal will be launched coinciding with the 75 years of India's independence. Slots will be booked on the portal for physically visiting the Parliament Library. "We have also taken initiative to integrate Parliament Library with all the major libraries of the country in coordination with the Niti Aayog," Birla said. Birla said that the process of integrating the Parliament Library and Libraries of 12 Legislative Assemblies is in progress to realize the vision of building a Legislative Library of India.

He said that by the end of July this year, the English version of all Like Sabha debates will be digitized. "By March 2023, efforts are being made to digitize the first part of the day's proceedings (starred and unstarred). The process of digitization of about 20 million pages of library documents is expected to start in July 2022," he said.

He said that the easy availability of information related to Lok Sabha is being ensured through the keyword search metadata method. Birla said that Parliamentary Research and Information Support for Members (PRISM) has been set up for the capacity building of the members. "We have also introduced briefing sessions by subject experts before the introduction of Bills in the House," Birla said.

While elaborating further on the issue of financial savings, Birla said that the 17th Lok Sabha witnessed unprecedented savings of Rs 668.86 crore in financial resources due to innovations and maximum use of digital technology. Of the total allotted budget of Rs 809.13 crore for the year 2019-20, an amount of Rs 159.08 crore was saved, whereas an amount of Rs 251.31 crore was saved in 2020-21 from the allotted budget of Rs 811.10 crore.

In the year 2021-22, an amount of Rs 258.47 crore was saved from an allowed fund of Rs 855.01 crore. Referring to the productivity of the first 8 sessions of the 17th Lok Sabha, Birla said that the productivity has been higher than the first eight sessions of the 14th to 16th Lok Sabha. "Productivity in the first 8 sessions of the 14th, 15th, and 16th Lok Sabha was 86 percent, 71 percent, and 95 percent respectively. Whereas productivity in the first 8 sessions of the 17th Lok Sabha was 106 percent," Birla said.