Parliament: Measuring Only Quantitative Productivity Is Not Correct
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By Our Editorial Team
First publised on 2022-04-08 09:42:59
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The India Commentary view
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The Budget session of Parliament was adjourned sine die two days before schedule on Thursday. While the opposition protested and said that the government did not want to have a discussion on the price rise, the government said the decision was taken after leaders from opposition parties including the Congress wanted a curtailment.
Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla said that the House had 27 sittings that lasted for 177 hours and 50 minutes during which 12 bills were passed and important debate took place on a host of issues. He said that the overall productivity stood at 127%. He thanked all parties for helping in increasing the productivity of the House. In the Rajya Sabha, chairman M Venkaiah Naidu said that the productivity stood at 99.8 percent.
But Parliament's performance cannot always be judged on quantitative parameters. Although the Budget session saw the passage of a good number of bills, the debate and discussion on a number of important bills, especially the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, was not very reassuring. Bulldozing bills through Parliament is not the sign of a mature democracy. Time should be allotted for more discussion on important bills and qualitative performance of the Houses need to be given more importance.
But what was reassuring was that after the Houses adjourned sine die, Om Birla, along with Prime Minister Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met opposition leaders and discussed several issues relating to the smooth conduct of proceedings in Parliament. It is important that such meetings are held more frequently and the government must take the lead to carry all parties along in having healthy and meaningful discussion on issues of national importance as well get legislative work done in Parliament. If the government ignores the opposition, they disturb the proceedings to make themselves heard and it impacts productivity in a negative manner.
