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Eight
days of adjournment cost nation Rs.63 crore
Tuesday November 23, 2010 07:33:56 PM,
IANS
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New Delhi:
The eight successive days of adjournment of parliament without any
major business translate into a loss of a staggering Rs.63 crore
with the expenditure for each day of a session calculated at
Rs.7.8 crore.
The controversial 2G spectrum allocation may have caused colossal
losses to the national exchequer, but the continuing opposition
protests over a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) also have led
to a huge financial drain.
Barring the first day of the ongoing winter session that began Nov
9, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha have not functioned normally
for even one full day to transact legislative business.
According to official figures, the total budget of the two houses
of parliament and the ministry of parliamentary affairs for
2010-11 is nearly Rs.535 crore.
In a year, parliament meets thrice, for the budget, monsoon and
winter sessions. In the past five years (2005-2009), there have
been an average of 68 sittings per year. That means, the
expenditure for each day of a session is nearly Rs.7.8 crore.
Though parliament's establishment works round the year, the
expenditure per day has to be worked out according to the number
of sittings because the entire staff, logistics and other expenses
are incurred solely for the institution to conduct its legislative
business. Otherwise, there would be no need to have the Lok Sabha
and the Rajya Sabha secretariats and their sprawling offices.
The ruling and opposition parties blame each other for the
stalemate and the consequent loss of time and public money.
Congress MP Ashwani Kumar said the opposition was making the
democratic institution dysfunctional by not allowing debates in
the houses.
"Parliament is a forum for debate. The government is prepared to
discuss all issues. The opposition is seeking to destroy essential
pillar of constitutional morality by making parliament
dysfunctional," Kumar told IANS.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy said the country
has an economist heading the government and he should be more
sensitive to the loss incurred due to stance adopted by his
government.
"The PM (Manmohan Singh) should be more forthcoming… The basic
suspicions on 2G spectrum scam are disturbing for the nation. The
solution is in transparency," Ruddy said.
Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Gurudas Dasgupta said his
party did not want parliament to be disrupted but the "government
is so adamant".
"It is ignoring joint voice of the opposition," Dasgupta said.
On Nov 15, the government did manage to table in the Lok Sabha
seven papers and two reports in a span of less than 10 minutes.
Among the highlights of that business was a bill by Finance
Minister Pranab Mukherjee seeking an approval from parliament for
an additional expenditure of nearly Rs.45,000 crore during the
current year.
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