Parliamentary reforms are need of the hour

Among the various reactions that the repeated non-functioning of Parliament evoked, one of the Samajwadi Party MPs suggested Parliament be converted into an amusement park on days of no substantial work so that the recovery of some of the monetary losses may be made up for. This kind of an open mockery of the highest legislative democracy is confined not only to the political precincts, but reflects the popular sentiment at large.

Here is a brief snapshot of the working of the current Lok Sabha. As per the annual report compiled by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs for 2009-10, a total of 19.53 per cent of the time of Lok Sabha was lost due to adjournments and other interruptions in 2009, whereas the Rajya Sabha time lost on similar accounts was 9.09 per cent. 2010 saw a steep rise, with Lok Sabha recording a time loss of 49.50 per cent, and Rajya Sabha at 44.47 per cent. None of the Houses in the 15th Lok Sabha officiated for 100 per cent of the scheduled hours in any of its sessions, except for the Budget Session of 2009.

According to the data assimilated by PRS Legislative Research, the opening session of the present year, the Budget Session of 2011 was recorded as the shortest budget session in the last two decades where both Houses sat for a total of 23 days, wherein Lok Sabha spent 44 hours discussing the budget, whereas Rajya Sabha spent a mere 23 hours on the budget discussion. Thus, during the Budget Session 2011, a total of nine bills against a planned total of 34 were introduced with merely six taken up for discussion, besides the finance and appropriation bills. Again during the 2011 Monsoon Session, Lok Sabha met for a 104 out of the planned 156 hours, whereas Rajya Sabha assembled for a total of 81 hours out of the planned 104 hours, that is to say that Lok Sabha worked for 67 per cent of the scheduled time, whereas Rajya Sabha worked for 62 per cent of the planned time. The same disturbing pattern seems to be re-surfacing with the snail-paced work of the scheduled 21 days of the year 2011 Winter Session of the Parliament.

Next, let us also take a sneak peek into the basic expenditure acquired in the way of monthly and daily maintenance of our MPs. Each MP is entitled to a monthly salary of `50,000 in addition to a monthly Constituency Allowance of `45,000 and a monthly Office Expense Allowance of `45,000 each, besides all this, there is also the Daily Allowance of `2,000 for each day on merely signing of the register maintained by the Secretariats of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, whether or not any substantial work has transacted in the Parliament. When computed against the present strength of the two Houses, the cost incurred works out to `52.5 lakh for each day when the Parliament is in session, simply in terms of salary and the major allowances of MPs. Thus each day wasted in Parliament means a loss of at least `52.5 lakh per day. What needs to be highlighted here is that this does not still take into account the significant expense sustained in the way of freebies disbursed to every MP in kind through other benefits like travel, medical, telephone, residence etc.

Just as a government is accountable to the Parliament, Parliament owes its accountability to the people of India, the highest sovereign authority in a democracy. What is the way forward to make the people holding the highest offices accountable towards the cost incurred, not only in terms of monetary setbacks but also the loss incurred in terms of developmental mismanagement that a country suffers when those responsible for spearheading the progress of the nation are too busy contributing towards chaos, logjam and standoff in the Parliament? Overarching parliamentary reforms seems inevitable in the light of contemporary dynamic challenges that Indian democracy seems to be facing today.

The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own