The recently concluded Budget Session of Parliament was the shortest budget session in the last two decades in India, cut short because of impending Assembly polls in four states and one Union territory. Even when it came to working the full allotted sitting, both Houses of Parliament ran a little short on schedule, with both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha holding only 23 of the scheduled 29 sittings in this session.
According to an analysis done by PRS Legislative Research, 81% of the Union budget was not even discussed in the session, and only 12% of the Lok Sabha?s time and six per cent of the Rajya Sabha?s time was spent on legislative business.
The rest of the time was spent in clearing the Budget, disturbances in the House with regard to the supreme court quashing the appointment of CVC P J Thomas, and the revelations of Wikileaks.
This lack of engagement with legislative work was reflected in the small number of Bills that were passed or introduced and huge of Bills still to be cleared.
According to the research, 78 Bills were pending before the session. Out of these 14 new Bills were introduced, and 10 were passed by both Houses, one Bill was withdrawn during the session while after the session it was found that pendancy had increased to 81 Bills.
Interestingly, the shifting of question hour in the Rajya Sabha from 11 am in the morning to 2 pm, did not result in more time being devoted to actual work. In the Rajya Sabha, it was found that 43 minutes were devoted to question hour work, while in the Lok Sabha, which went by the old timing, the time devoted was 50 minutes for the same period on an average. This may change later.