New Delhi, Dec 23: The Lok Sabha had over 100 per cent productivity in the winter session of Parliament, while Rajya Sabha could not even reach the halfway mark, working only 46 per cent of its time, Parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu said Wednesday.
Briefing reporters as the winter session came to an end, the minister blamed the Congress for the repeated disruptions. “This session has been a victim of a strategy conceived before the commencement of this session which was to see that Parliament was paralysed, come what may,” Naidu said.
The Lok Sabha had 100.46 per cent productivity — calculated as the ratio between the scheduled number of hours and the number of hours the House worked. The Rajya Sabha on the other hand had only 46 per cent productivity.
While the Lok Sabha passed 14 bills, the Rajya Sabha passed nine bills, most of them without discussion.
“Broadly, this session has been marred by inventions of excuses to stall the Parliament on daily basis by our opponents,” he said. On the GST bill, the minister said the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Sonia Gandhi raised hopes, and blamed the Congress for not being able to pass it.
Vice-President and Chairman of Rajya Sabha Hamid Ansari appealed to the members “to introspect on this state of affairs (and) desist from approaches and practices that demean the stature of the Rajya Sabha”. Agencies
