It has become a norm these days to see the disruptions, walk outs and street like protests in the parliament of India from the respected members of Parliament of our country.
It pains to see such a waste of tax payers of hard earned money which is spent to run countries biggest panchayat where legislators come from all the corners of the country to bring up issues that the people in their respective constituencies face in daliy lives. The money is given to the Parliamentarians to debate and learn about the issues of the country and legislate on matters that decide the future of the people of the country and impacts millions of lives.
Nowadays, the Parliament of India contains more of polarising speeches, hatred, lack of productivity and blatant waste of time and money of the country.
As per the sources, each minute of running Parliament during sessions costs the exchequer Rs 2.5 Lakh every minute, which is a huge sum of money if added for the entire year.
Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha run for almost 80 - 100 days in a year, and each day consists of nearly six hours of business in both the houses each.
In March 2023
Interesting things recently have been that the government who is responsible for running the Parliament is itself also protesting in the Parliament. In March 2023, the protests from both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Opposition parties, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were adjourned regularly, resulting in a loss of over Rs 10 crore of taxpayers’ money in the six days of the Budget Session of Parliament.
According to the details shared by PRS Legislative, in the second half of the session till 20 March 2023, the Lok Sabha functioned for only 1.45 hours out of the scheduled time of 36 hours, while the Rajya Sabha functioned for 2.78 hours out of the scheduled 35.50 hours.
Rajya Sabha functioned for 7.84 percent of its scheduled time, Lok Sabha functioned for just 4.03 percent of the scheduled time.
Budget Session of 2019
In the budget session of 2019, the productivity of Lok Sabha touched 137 per cent and 103 per cent for Rajya Sabha. The Lok Sabha did business for 480 hours, during the 37 sessions, no time was lost due to adjournments and interruptions. This needs to be appreciated too.
For the year 2017- 18
The disruption in the winter session of the Parliament in 2017-18 caused a loss of over 140 Crore to the exchequer.
For the year 2016 -17
According to Statistics available, during the year 2016, about 90 hours were wasted due to disruptions in the proceedings of the Parliament. Due to this about Rs. 144 crore were lost (Rs. 138 crore to run the Parliament plus Rs. 6 crore for salaries and allowances of Members of Parliament).
For the Year 2012 -13
Monsoon Session of the Parliament was almost completely washed out over the controversy on coal block allocations where the BJP protested and demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Over 77 percent of the session's business time in Lok Sabha and 72 percent in Rajya Sabha was lost due to disruptions in tte session.
Salaries of Parliamentarians:-
According to the figures provided by the Lok Sabha, the Parliamentarians are given Rs. 50,000 as monthly salary, Electorate allowance of Rs. 40,000, Rs. 15,000 as office expenses and Rs. 30,000 as Secretarial assistance expenses i.e. a total of Rs.1,40,000 is given to them every month. Further, the Parliamentarians are also provided with 34 free Air journeys and unlimited rail and Road Journeys across a year.
After a person looses his or her seat they get life long pension for just a 5 year term as elected politician, and other benefits along.
Also, Parliament reconvened following the Lok Sabha elections of 2024, continuing the trend of unproductivity and cacophony rather than engaging in meaningful debate. There appears to be a lack of substantive dialogue among Members of Parliament, resulting in an atmosphere reminiscent of a marketplace. A significant amount of public funds is allocated to this institution, which is often referred to as the temple of democracy, to elect representatives who are expected to facilitate its operations. It is disheartening for citizens to witness that the primary outcome is merely noise when tuning into Sansad TV. A more effective approach might be to transition to an online format, as the current proceedings seem to serve only as a formality.
Moral - VOTE wisely, look at views and background of politician and not the caste and religion.
By: Ashutosh Garg
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