Odisha Assembly seldom sits for 60 days a year

The Odisha legislative Assembly (OlA) has sat for 60 days a year only for three times during 10 years of the Naveen Patnaik Government from 2004 to 2015.As per norms fixed by the OlA, the number of working days of various Assembly sessions in a year should be minimum of 60 days. However, the sessions in all years, excepting 2006, 2010 and 2012, have sat less than 60 days.

This information was obtained through an RTI application by social activist Pradip Pradhan. As per the information, the number of days fixed for a particular Assembly session every year got reduced by the Government due to various reasons.

While the OlA sat for 58 days in the year 2004, it sat for 49 days in 2005, 60 days in 2006, 42 days in 2007, 52 days in 2008, 50 days in 2009, 60 days in 2010, 54 days in 2011, 60 days in 2012, 52 days in 2013 and 48 days in 2014.  “The State Government has succeeded in reducing sitting days of the State Assembly because of ruling party’s brute majority, arbitrary attitude, intolerance to opinion of the Opposition parties and little respect to them,” alleged Pradhan.