While the year 2021 ended on a low note for Rajya Sabha with the second lowest annual productivity ever, its eight Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committees (DRSCs) have reported the best performance.
Sources in the RÃ jya Sabha secretariat said the 59 per cent annual productivity during 2021 has been the second lowest for Rajya Sabha after the House hit the nadir with productivity of 36 per cent during 2018. Issues relating to the three Farm Bills and suspension of 12 Members of the House adversely impacted the functioning of the House during the Monsoon and Winter Sessions of 2021.
In contrast, the 8 DRSCs of Rajya Sabha have significantly improved their performance during September, 2020 to September, 2021 in terms of duration of meetings and attendance of Members over that of 2017-18.
“Since assumption of office in August, 2017, Chairman Rajya Sabha M. Venkaiah Naidu has been regularly monitoring and reviewing the performance of these 8 Committees given their importance. He convened a meeting with the Chairmen of all the 8 Committees after the first review and has been writing to them regularly on the functioning of these Committees and urged them to endeavour to improve their performance,” sources said.
The latest review of the performance of these 8 Committees revealed that while only two Committees on Transport, Tourism & Culture and Health Family Welfare reported average duration of over two hours per meeting in 2017-18, six Committees i.e. Transport, Health, Education, Home Affairs, Science & Technology and Commerce met for over two hours per meeting during 2020-21.
While no Committee has reported attendance of 50% in 2017-18, three Committees on Transport, Education and Law & Justice have reported attendance of more than 50% during 2020-21 with six of the eight Committees improving average attendance in the meetings during this period.
For the 134 meetings held by the 8 Committees during 2017-18, the average duration of each meeting had been 1 hour 51 minutes while the average attendance was 44.87%. The same for the 126 meetings held during 2020-21 has been 2 hours 14 minutes and 47.53% respectively. This marks an increase of 20% in the duration of meetings and 6% rise in attendance despite the pandemic since March, 2020.
This has been the best performance during the last four years, further to regular review by Naidu.
In his last letter to the Chairmen of all the 8 Committees, Naidu has urged them to ensure an average attendance of 50% and average duration of 2 hours 30 minutes in each of the meetings given the costs involved. The performance reported in this regard during 2020-21 is close to the benchmarks suggested by the Rajya Sabha Chairman.
Naidu, this week commissioned a study to recommend ways of improving the performance of these Committees and also to examine effective amplification through media of the content and the recommendations contained in the reports submitted by these Committees for wider dissemination.
Each Committee has 31 members with 10 from Rajya Sabha and 21 from Lok Sabha. Attendance of 11 members (35%) make the quorum for each meeting. Number of meetings held without quorum has also substantially declined in 2020-21. These Committees are reconstituted every year in September.