8 bills introduced, only 2 passed: Demonetisation makes Winter Session 2016 one of the least productive Parliament sessions in last 15 yrs

The Winter Session of Parliament this year has recorded least productive sessions in both the houses in the last 15 years, according to PRS Legislative Research data.

The productivity dipped to 15 year low due to the demonetisation issue, which led to repeated disruptions in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, said the survey.

Only two out of eight bills that were introduced in this session were passed. This session, the legislative business turned out to be the lowest so far in the current Parliament (16th Lok Sabha), it said.

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According to data provided by the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry at the end of the session on Friday, the productivity of work done in the Lok Sabha was pegged at 15.75 per cent, while it was 20.61 per cent in the Rajya Sabha.

As per the data collated by PRS Legislative Research, as a result of repeated disruptions, only two of the 330 listed questions in the Rajya Sabha could be answered orally.

“This has been one of the least productive Question Hour sessions for the Rajya Sabha in the last three Parliaments (13th, 14th and 15th Lok Sabhas). Previously, one of the 480 questions and none of the 420 questions were answered orally in the winter sessions of 2010 and 2013, respectively,” it said.

In the Lok Sabha, 11 per cent of the questions could be answered orally. This was the least productive Question Hour of the 16th Lok Sabha, it said.

The session hardly saw any legislative action except for the passage of the Rights of Persons with Disability Bill by both the Houses. Significantly, this legislation was cleared today after a brief debate with a rare bonhomie, similar to the one witnessed in the Rajya Sabha on it two days back.

According to a press note issued by the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry, during the session 10 bills—all in the Lok Sabha—were introduced. While the lower house passed four, the Rajya Sabha could pass only one bill.

Since the 16th Lok Sabha was constituted in middle of 2014, the lower house spent more time discussing bills as compared to the Rajya Sabha.

Since June 2014, the Lok Sabha has passed 83 bills and spent 216 hours on discussions on them. Whereas the Rajya Sabha has passed 73 bills with a total discussion time of 121 hours. The Lok Sabha has discussed 63 per cent of the bills for more than 2 hours while Rajya Sabha has discussed 34 per cent of the bills, the PRS Legislative Research said.

(With inputs from PTI)