RS Chairman concerned over less participation of MPs in committee meetings

New Delhi, March 25 More than 21 hours were lost due to disruptions in the Rajya Sabha during the Budget Session of the Parliament, even as the House was adjourned sine die on Thursday, two weeks ahead of the scheduled date of April 8.

Espressing concern over less participation of the MPs in the committee meetings, Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu said, "There are some areas of concern such as less attendance of members and the duration of the meetings, which need further improvement. I urge all the party leaders to sensitise their members to take the committee works seriously given their importance and relevance in our parliamentary system."

These committees presented 21 action taken reports, six reports on subjects taken up by them and two reports on the Bills referred to them.

Naidu informed the house that "As against 33 sittings scheduled from January 29 to April 8, we are concluding after having 23 sittings."

"The House functioned for a total of 104 hours and 23 minutes against the total scheduled time of 116 hours and 31 minutes during these 23 sittings. This in effect means that the productivity of the House, including both legs of this Budget Session, has been about 90 per cent. While the productivity of the first part of this Session from January 29 to February 12 was 99.06 per cent, the productivity of the second part that began on March 8 comes to about 85 per cent.

"A total of 21 hours and 26 minutes of the House have been lost due to disruptions during this Session. Confronting, however, is the fact that as against this loss, the House sat beyond the scheduled time for a total of 14 hours and 28 minutes to complete the legislative and other businesses," Naidu said.

The Rajya Sabha Chairman said that the high productivity witnessed during the last four sessions since June 2019 has continued in this session as well. As a result, the overall productivity of the last four sessions and this session comes to about 94 per cent, he added.

The members raised a total of 273 issues of urgent public importance through 163 Zero Hour submissions and 110 special mentions.

( With inputs from IANS )