New Delhi: As the 3rd session of the 18th Lok Sabha adjourned ‘Sine Die’ on Friday, it had a total of 20 sittings that continued for 62 hours. The entire session witnessed pandemonium since day one when the winter session started on November 25. The productivity of the 18th Lok Sabha was 57.87 per cent.
Shocked over the lack of productivity and chaos in the House during the entire session, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla in his valedictory speech said that protesting in front of the Parliament gate is not at all a good sign. Appealing to the MPs to retain the dignity of Parliament, Birla said, “The Parliament do have rights to take necessary actions to protect its dignity.”
According to the statistics provided by the Lok Sabha secretariat, five government bills were introduced in the 18th Lok Sabha and four bills were passed. At least 182 matters of urgent public importance were raised during Zero Hour whereas 397 matters have been raised under Rule 377 during the entire session. As many as 61 starred questions were also answered orally.
The House also had a marathon discussion for two days over the 75 years of the Indian Constitution. The discussion started on December 13 and concluded on December 14. The 18th Lok Sabha during its session also welcomed the president of the Armenia National Assembly and his team on December 17. On November 28, two newly elected members also took oath.
Similar to the first week of the 3rd session of the 18th Lok Sabha, almost all weeks in the last 26 days witnessed chaos in the House. The first week witnessed forced adjournments by the opposition parties over various issues with the Lok Sabha functioning for less than 54 minutes and the Rajya Sabha for 75 minutes.
At the beginning of the session, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said that tentatively 16 items of legislative business and one item of financial business have been identified for being taken up during this session.
The disruptions in the House were mainly centred around the opposition's demand for a discussion on the Adani issue, Manipur issue and others which were not accepted by the government.
The 3rd session of the 18th Lok Sabha also witnessed a no-confidence motion against Vice-President and Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankar as the opposition parties moved the motion to remove Dhankar from the chair accusing him of playing a partisan role.
Slamming the chairman on the last day of the Winter Session, Trinamool Congress M Derek O'Brien said that the Upper House ran for a total of 43 hours till December 18 and Dhankhar spoke for around four and a half hours.
Meanwhile, while reviewing the outcome and performance of the 3rd session of the 18th Lok Sabha, PRS Legislative Research (PRS), a Delhi-based independent research institute, on the Indian legislative process found that the Parliament functioned for about half of its scheduled time.
“The Lok Sabha functioned for 52 per cent of its scheduled time and the Rajya Sabha functioned for 39 per cent of its scheduled time,” it said.
According to the PRS findings, the functioning of Question Hour was significantly affected. “Question Hour did not function in the Rajya Sabha for 15 out of 19 days. In the Lok Sabha, Question Hour did not function for more than 10 minutes on 12 out of 20 days. Members use Question Hour to hold the government accountable for its policies and actions,” the PRS stated. Furthermore, the Lok Sabha witnessed no private members’ business during the session.
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