COURTESY TOI MARCH 3

95 MPs didn’t attend a single meet on budget allocations
New Delhi:

As many as 95 MPs did not attend a single meeting of the eight departmentrelated parliamentary standing committees (DRSCs) that reviewed allocations for 18 ministries after the presentation of the 2020-21 Union Budget on February 1, Rajya Sabha chairperson M Venkaiah Naidu said on Monday. Reviewing the functioning of the eight DRSCs handled by the RS secretariat, which have 244 members (166 from LS and 78 from RS), Naidu said they held 20 meetings during the three-week parliamentary recess. TNN

Cong MPs on panels log 62% attendance, BJP’s 58%

The Rajya Sabha has DRSCs dealing with commerce, health & family welfare, home affairs, HRD, industry, personnel, public grievances and law & justice, S&T and environment, and transport, tourism and culture. There are 16 other DRSCswith the Lok Sabha. The highest attendance was recorded in the meetings of the committee on health and family welfare (65.51%), while the lowest attendance was in the DRSC dealing in commerce (32.25%). The DRSC on home was a close second with an attendance of 54.8%, while the DRSC on industry saw attendance of 43.55%.

The BJP, with a strength of 110 MPs out of the 244 who constitute the members of the DRSCs, had a total attendance of 58% against Congress’s 62% attendance with just 32 MPs. Smaller regional partieshad a cumulative attendance of 40%.

“In all, the work put in by the 24 DRSCs in examining the demands for grants of all ministries equals 30 days of functioning, which is quite significant. This alone takes the total sittings of Parliament during a year to over 100 days…I would like to assure people and all stakeholders that Parliament is meeting for sufficient time” Venkaiah Naidu said. But he expressed disappointment that 95 (78 from Lok Sabha and 23 from Rajya Sabha) of the 244 members in the eight DRSCs with the Upper House had “zero attendance” this time as compared to only 28 last time.

“The total number of members who skipped two or more successive meetings has increased from 100 last year to 106 now,” he said. The six Rajya Sabha members, who registered full attendance, however, came in for praise