Parliament in the Winter session, 2015

The Lok Sabha is edging past the Rajya Sabha in productive work. During this session, the Lower House worked for 98 per cent of its scheduled time, whereas the Upper House worked for 51 per cent of its scheduled time.

• Over the years, the productivity of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha has been similar, with a few instances of one House performing marginally better than the other. However, in the past four sessions, the average productivity of the Lok Sabha has been 97 per cent and the average productivity of the Rajya Sabha has been 62 per cent
• In this session, the majority of productive time was spent on non-legislative business, which included discussions on issues related to price rise, drought and floods, and a two-day special sitting on commitment to India's Constitution

Eight Bills were passed by Parliament in this session

• The Lok Sabha spent more time debating Bills as compared to the Rajya Sabha in this session. The Lok Sabha discussed 13 Bills for 28 hours, whereas the Rajya Sabha discussed 9 Bills for 8 hours
• While the Rajya Sabha passed 7 Bills, 6 of these were passed without any discussion
  In the past 10 years, this session saw the highest proportion (71 per cent) of Bills being introduced and passed within the same session
• Seven Bills (excluding ordinances) were introduced. Of these, five Bills were passed without being referred to any parliamentary committee. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2015, was referred to a joint committee consisting of members of parliament from both Houses
• Typically, committees examine Bills in detail, and get inputs from experts and stakeholders