The Budget session of Parliament will resume on March 14 and both the houses – Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will function during normal hours. During the 2nd part of the session starting Monday, the Rajya Sabha will get 19 hours of additional business time over the earlier scheduled time. The business hours for the house will be 11 am to 6 pm during the scheduled 19 sittings. The houses sat in shifts during the first part of the session due to COVID-related restrictions.
With this increase in sitting time of one hour per sitting, Rajya Sabha will get 64 hours 30 minutes for transacting the Government’s legislative business and taking up the issues of public importance during the second part of the session.
The upper house will have four days for Private Member’s Business. The Question Hour will continue to be for one hour while the Zero Hour which was curtailed to half an hour during the first part will now be restored to its full one hour time.
The Budget session resumes after a 30-day recess during which the ‘Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committees (DRSCs)’ examined the Demands for Grants of various ministries and departments. Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu is likely to give an account of the working during this recess of the DRSCs of Rajya Sabha in the House on Monday.
The first part of this budget session with 10 sittings concluded on February 11, 2022, with the House reporting productivity of 101.40 per cent. After the President’s Address to Members of both the Houses and presentation of the Union Budget for 2022-23 on the first two days of the first part of this session, Rajya Sabha witnessed eight full consecutive sittings subsequently without disturbances and forced adjournments, doing so after about three years. The previous such performance was during the first 13 sittings of the Monsoon session in 2019. The second part of the Budget session will begin on March 14 and conclude on April 8.