Quorum bell fails to ring in discipline among MPs

Last week, those present in Parliament in the post lunch session were shocked to hear the quorum bell of the Lok Sabha ring for 10 continuous minutes, after which the House proceedings were suspended due to lack of quorum.

Poor attendance and adjournments have become a common sight in India's House of democracy.

Despite the fact that the Opposition has been responsible for loss of business time of over 195 hours and 44 minutes in the last eight sessions of the 14th Lok Sabha, the government cannot put the blame on its shoulders alone for the lack of work being done.

Take the example of the ninth session of this Lok Sabha. The government, because of a logjam with its allies, has not brought any significant business to the floor of the House this session. The Bills passed in the last two weeks of this session include the University Bill, amendments to the Telegraph Act and the Essential Commodities Act, the Jalianwala Bagh Act and a Bill changing the name of the state of Uttaranchal to Uttarakhand.

At the beginning of the session, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi had said that important legislations like the pension regulation, banking regulation, insurance Bill, women's reservation and tribal tights Bills would be brought to the House in the ninth session.

However, with just six days of business left, even Dasmunshi admitted that these Bill were stuck in limbo for an indeterminate time.

The only major Bill scheduled to make an appearance is the one dealing with reservation for OBCs in private educational institutions on Friday.

In fact, it seems that the session has been called only to make sure that the railways and general appropriations Bills are cleared. With such a dull fare, the Opposition has been making the most of the government's lack of agenda.

In fact, the only session when the hours lost to adjournment were less than the number of hours of work per day was the third session, which saw only five hours of disruption. This was due to a boycott by the Opposition for the entire session. But a glance at business undertaken does not show any significant increase.

It has been calculated that it takes nearly Rs 22 lakh per hour to run Parliament. Calculations of time lost till now show that the hours lost due to adjournments far exceed the hours usefully employed (around 150 hours in toto).

It is the Opposition's job to raise a hue and cry, and the government's to bring in business. For Parliament to do its work, the government must set the agenda, rather than wait for the Opposition to run riot.