Naidu asks RS panels' members to improve their functioning
New Delhi: Expressing his concern in the House on the functioning of parliamentary Committees, Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday urged the parties and members to do needful to improve their functioning.
The Chairman expressed his worry over poor attendance in the meetings of the standing committees of Rajya Sabha like the committees on subordinate legislation, petitions and papers laid on the table.
"I hence, appeal to leaders of all parties and members of this House to ensure quantitative and qualitative functioning of these committees in whom the Parliament has vested an important responsibility of functioning on its behalf," the RS Chairman said.
"Each member of the department-related standing committee represents 25 members of Parliament while deliberating in the committee. If one member is absent, the voice of 25 MPs would not be heard," he stated.
Naidu also referred to the meeting he had on Thursday morning with the chairmen of eight department-related standing committees (DRSCs) that are with Rajya Sabha in which members of both the Houses are represented and also the Chairmen of 12 standing committees of Rajya Sabha.
Stating in Rajya Sabha that eight DRSCs that are with Rajya Sabha have held 41 meetings since their reconstitution in September this year, Naidu told the House that an analysis of attendance of these 41 meetings revealed a disturbing trend which was shared with the chairmen of the committees earlier in the day.
Earlier, while addressing the Chairmen of all the committees of Upper House, Naidu said that the average attendance in each of the 41 meetings held by eight DRSCs of Rajya Sabha was 48.54 per cent with the attendance ranging from a low of five in case of one meeting of the committee on Home Affairs to 25 in one meeting of the committee on HRD.
The average attendance in each of the meetings of these committees ranged from 39 per cent in case of the committee on Home Affairs to 65 per cent in case of the Committee on HRD. Members' attendance has been below the half way mark of 16 in case of 23 of the total 41 meetings.
