Parliament sees least productive Budget session in 18 years

Parliament

With Parliament passing only two laws outside Budget-related Bills during the month-long session, the Budget session that concluded on Friday is the least productive Budget session since 2000, data shows. Besides the Finance Bill and the two Appropriation Bills, the Lok Sabha could pass only the Payments of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill and the Specific Relief (Amendment) Bill in its overall 29 sittings.

The Rajya Sabha passed only the Payments of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill, that too without any discussion, in its 30 sittings. It was for the first time since 2000 that the two Houses spent almost no time on discussing the Budget and 100 per cent of the demand for grants were passed without discussion, data compiled by NGO PRS Legislative Research showed.

A no confidence motion notice was given by the opposition against the Narendra Modi government for the first time since 2014 but it was not admitted by the Lok Sabha Speaker. Lok Sabha worked for 21 per cent of the scheduled hours and Rajya Sabha for 27 per cent. It was Lok Sabha's poorest performance of Question Hour since 2014.

One per cent of productive time was spent on legislative business in Lok Sabha and six per cent in Rajya Sabha. Also Parliament held lowest number of discussions on matters of public importance since 2014.

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