Parliament met for the last sitting of the Budget Session today.
The Constitution (121st Amendment) Bill, 2014 and The National Judicial
Appointments Commission Bill, 2014 were passed by Rajya Sabha today.
In Lok Sabha today The Apprentices (Amendment) Bill, 2014 was passed
and The Central Universities (Amendment) Bill, 2014 was introduced.
Please find the Vital Stats Document on the 2014 Budget Session here, and another Vital Stats Document on the Participation of Lok Sabha MPs here.
The Plan Versus Performance can be found here, and the Session Wrap is here.
Productivity
Both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha sat for the overall scheduled time during
the session. Whereas Lok Sabha worked for 104% of the time, Rajya Sabha
worked for 106%. Though Rajya Sabha witnessed more disruptions than Lok
Sabha, it made up for the lost time by working late on several days.
The first Budget session of the last Parliament in 2009 also recorded a
similar level of productivity. However both the Houses worked for 64% of
the time available during the first Budget session of the 14th Lok
Sabha in 2004.
Over the last ten years, the 2014 Budget Session has recorded the second
highest productivity, the highest being 110% in the Monsoon session of
2005.
Question Hour
24% of the scheduled questions were answered orally in Lok Sabha, the highest across all sessions of Parliament, since 2004.
In comparison only 15% of the scheduled questions were answered orally in Rajya Sabha.
Legislation
Lok Sabha spent 12% of its time discussing legislation. This was higher
than the time spent on legislation in the first budget session of the
previous two Lok Sabhas. A total of 14 new Bills have been introduced in
this Session, of which six Bills have been passed.
Out of the six Bills passed in Lok Sabha, three replaced Ordinances,
i.e., Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, Securities Laws
(Amendment) Bill, and the TRAI (Amendment) Bill.
Two Bills providing for the National Judicial Appointments Commission
were also passed. The sixth Bill made the National Institute of Design
an institute of national importance.
One Bill has been withdrawn. This leaves 67 Bills pending in Parliament as of today.
Performance of First-Time MPs
In the 16th Lok Sabha, 314 MPs are first-term MPs, of which 10 are
ministers. Of these MPs, 246 participated in debates during the
session. ƒIn terms of major parties, all the first-timers from TRS
spoke during the session, while only 40% of the AITC first-timers did
so.
It appears that experience helps MPs get an opportunity to speak. On
average, a first-timer took part in 3.7 debates while an experienced MP
participated in 5.7 debates in this session.