The massive disruption of proceedings of Rajya Sabha in the ongoing Monsoon session that started on July 19 has cost the exchequer a whopping Rs 40 crore so far.
Parliament officials said that when in Session, it costs an approximate Rs 5/6 crore for running the upper house per day which accounts to Rs 1 crore every hour and about 1.25 lakh every minute.
Rajya Sabha has witnessed more disruptions compared to Lok Sabha ever since it started on July 19. It has officially lost 39 hours and 52 minutes of its 50 working hours to disruptions in the two-week period.
The total allocated budget for the Rajya Sabha which includes all expenses like salaries etc stand at Rs 460 crore annually, which comes to around Rs 1.2 crore daily.
But when the House runs, which is all sessions like Budget, Winter, Special, the total days account for six hours and for 70 days. The cost that comes to run the House with all paraphernalia and system at place with six hours of scheduled running of the House then comes to Rs 5/6 crore daily.
Further, the conduct of eight Parliamentary Standing Committees also comes at a separate cost and that is Rs 5 crore for one meeting. This means when a panel meeting is called and if it could not be conducted due to lack of quorums then there is a different head loss of Rs 5 crore from the people’s exchequer, explained a Parliament official.
The productivity till now fell from 32.20 per cent during the first week of the ongoing monsoon session to 13.70 per cent in the second week. The overall productivity of the Upper House was 21.60 per cent as of Saturday.
During its nine sittings in the first two weeks, the Upper House could have only 1 hour 38 minutes of Question Hour and only 1 hour 24 minutes for legislative business, during which it passed four bills.
Further, the Rajya Sabha spent only one minute of Zero Hour and another four minutes on Special Mentions. However, officials said that the House sat for 1 hour 12 minutes beyond the scheduled time.
Covid-related issues were discussed for 4 hours 37 minutes during the first week and the minister for IT laid a statement on the Pegasus spyware issue during the first week, the officials said.
Due to the disruptions, a concerned Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu, for the first time, granted permission to the RS Secretariat to report in the daily bulletins, the business of the House that could not be taken up.
During the first two weeks of the current session, 130 Zero Hour Submissions and 87 Special Mentions through which the members raise issues of public importance could not be taken though they were admitted by the Chairman.