In the recently concluded Winter Session of Parliament, nine Bills were introduced. Of the Bills introduced, 4 bills have been referred to the relevant Standing Committee for examining the Bill. The Standing Committees have been given three months to scrutinize the bills, hold consultations and present a report. Details of these Bills are: 1. The Forward Contracts (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2010 (to be examined by the Committee on Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution) 2. The Multi-State Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2010 (to be examined by the Committee on Agriculture) 3. The NIMHANS, Bangalore Bill, 2010 (to be examined by the Committee on Health and Family Welfare) 4. The National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 (to be examined by the Committee on Finance) The composition of the Standing Committees examining the Bills can be found here. Typically, during the process of review the parliamentary standing committees issue advertisements in newspapers inviting public feedback and comments on the Bill. As and when the advertisements appear, details can be found on the PRS website.
Apropos Madhukar’s post on available information on the functioning of state legislatures, data on the number of days State Assemblies shows a mixed trend over the 2000 to 2010 period. However, most states uniformly under perform when it comes to number of days of sitting. (Spreadsheet with relevant data here) As with Parliament, state assemblies are convened at the will of the executive. In comparison to the Lok Sabha, the state assemblies perform miserably. In any given year, most state assemblies do not sit for even half the number of the days clocked by the Lok Sabha.
