BJD Lawmaker Baijayant Panda to return of his salary to time lost in Lok Sabha
NEW DELHI : Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MP Baijayant Jay Panda said on Sunday that he will return part of his salary and daily allowance proportional to the time lost in the Lok Sabha due to disruptions.He has been doing so since the past few years.
“I have been doing this for 4-5 yers, end of every session I’ve been returning my salary and allowance in same proportion as time lost in Lok Sabha,” he said.”Symbolic gesture, as my conscience bothers me that we are not doing what we were supposed to do, despite me not disrupting even once,” Panda added.
He admitted that this was nothing compared to the huge amount of money that has been wasted.”The country is losing lots of money because of the disruptions in Parliament. I haven’t disrupted Parliament even once in my last 16 years. It is a matter of my personal conscience,” he said.
On December 16, the month-long Winter session of Parliament concluded, with the demonetisation row ensuring a virtual washout and making it one of the “least productive” sessions in the last 15 years.
Due to the repeated disruptions, Lok Sabha could function only for 15.75 percent and lost 92 hours while Rajya Sabha worked for 20.61 percent and lost about 86 hours.Negligible business was transacted during the 21 scheduled sittings of the session that began on November 16 and several important legislations like the one on GST were left pending.
The only significant legislative action was the passage of the Rights of Persons with Disability Bill by both the Houses. Significantly, this bill was cleared on the last day after a brief debate and with rare bonhomie, similar to the one witnessed in the Rajya Sabha on it two days back.
During the session, the Lok Sabha also passed the Income Tax Amendment Bill without any debate amid din but it could not be taken up for consideration in the Rajya Sabha.The only other legislative action was the approval of the Supplementary Demands for Grants.
“This has been one of the least productive Question Hour sessions for Rajya Sabha in the last three Parliaments. Previously, one of the 480 questions and none of the 420 questions were answered orally in the Winter sessions of 2010 and 2013, respectively,” said PRS Legislative Research, as per PTI.
While adjourning the two Houses sine die, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari had expressed pain and anguish over the repeated disruptions.Ansari had said “all sections” of the House need to introspect on the distinction between dissent, disruption and agitation.
In the Rajya Sabha, the debate on demonetisation took place on the first day of the session but subsequently the Opposition continuously created uproar demanding presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the entire discussion.The debate was again taken up once for an hour when PM Modi was present but it could not be carried forward.
The Rajya Sabha saw introduction of 12 bills but only one was passed.In the Lok Sabha, the debate could be hardly taken up even though both the government and Opposition repeatedly said they were ready for a discussion on demonetisation announced on November 8.
The deadlock occurred as the Opposition insisted on debate under a rule that entails voting, which was not acceptable to the ruling side.
“This is not a good thing for all of us and this maligns our image in the eyes of people,” the Speaker had said.
The Speaker had also regretted that 21 sittings of the House lasted only 19 hours which saw 50 of the total 440 starred being answered on the floor and members raising 124 issues of urgent public importance.
11 percent of the questions could be answered orally. This was the least productive Question Hour of the 16th Lok Sabha, PRS said.According to a press release issued by the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry, 10 bills were introduced in the Lok Sabha.
Since June 2014, the Lok Sabha has passed 83 bills and spent 216 hours discussing them. On the other hand, Rajya Sabha has passed 73 Bills with a total discussion time of 121 hours.Lok Sabha has discussed 63 per cent of the bills for more than 2 hours while Rajya Sabha has discussed 34 per cent of the bills, the PRS Legislative said.
(With Agency inputs)
