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April 2008

Behave yourself

By Raman Jokhakar, Tarunkumar Singhal, Chartered Accountants
Reading Time 1 mins

New Page 4

1. Behave yourself


Figures compiled for the Budget session alone for the past
seven years show that time lost to interruptions has varied from 13 hours to a
shocking 74 hours. Our legislators are obviously not doing what they have been
elected for. Most of the Govern-ment’s expenditure plans and policy initiatives
are being passed without any discussion whatsoever.

The Budget session is not an exception. The number of
sittings of the Lok Sabha has come down from an yearly average of 124 in the
first decade of 1952-61 to 81 between 1992 and 2001, a decline of 34 per cent.
This has meant that much of the discussion of legislation goes on behind the
scenes in parliamentary committees while the floor of the House is used for
shouting and heckling.

The Vice-President of India recently proposed that Parliament
sit for a minimum of 130 days a year. Somnath Chatterjee, who has presided over
a fractious Lok Sabha for the past four years, has suggested that MPs who
disrupt House proceedings be docked a day’s pay. But these proposals have
unsurprisingly been ignored.

(Source : The Times of India, 1-3-2008)

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