The recently-concluded Budget session of the Indian Parliament was the least productive in 18 years

• The Lok Sabha lost 127 hours and 45 minutes due to disruptions while the Rajya Sabha wasted 121 hours.
  
• In the time spent sitting by the Lok Sabha, a grand total of five bills were passed as against a planned target of 40. Two of these, the Finance Bill and the Appropriation Bill, were passed in less than half an hour.
  
• Around ₹3.7 billion rupees of taxpayers money was lost as a result of the disruptions to the Budget Session.
  

The 2018 Budget session, which concluded on April 6th, saw India’s Parliament record another unflattering statistic. According to PRS Legislative Research, Delhi-based think tank, it was the least productive Budget Session since 2000.

Based on information from the Lok Sabha secretariat, 127 hours and 45 minutes were wasted in the Lower House of Parliament while business was conducted for only 34 hours. The Rajya Sabha (Upper House) fared slightly better, sitting for 44 hours and wasting 121. All in all, 249 out of a total of 327 hours were completely wasted, culminating in a productivity level of 24%.

If you can call it productivity.

In human terms, if an MP in the recent session was given four hours to do something, he or she spent three hours arguing about this responsibility, 45 minutes sitting down to think about it and 15 minutes actually doing it.

In the time spent sitting by the Lok Sabha, a grand total of five bills were passed as against a planned target of 40. Two of these - the Finance Bill, which comprises taxation measures, and the Appropriation Bill, which details spending plans for government ministries - were passed in quick succession on March 14th. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Sumitra Mahajan, was able to pass the bills in less than half an hour without any discussion by administering the “guillotine process”. When a guillotine is applied, all outstanding proposals need to be voted on once a fixed time for discussion is over.

The hours wasted by Parliament aren’t borne by MPs but by taxpayers. In September 2012, following a washed-out Monsoon session, the Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Pawan Kumar Bansal, said that the cost to the Exchequer of running the Parliament for one minute was ₹250,000, a figure which has since been routinely quoted. Based on this estimate, around ₹3.7 billion rupees of taxpayers money was lost as a result of the disruptions to the Budget Session, excluding the salaries of MPs.

But one can’t just look at this in monetary terms. There is a significant cost to bills being delayed, not only for the intended beneficiaries of such bills, but in terms of the time they take up in future sessions of Parliament which would normally be reserved for newer bills. At the end of the Budget Session, there were 68 bills pending for discussion and passage, including the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill and the Whistleblowers Protection Bill.

India’s electorate aren’t unfamiliar with washouts in Parliament. A number of sessions in recent years have been been largely unproductive and beset by interruptions. For example, the Winter Session in 2016, which took place right after the demonetisation, lost 19 of its 21 days due to disruptions. In the absence of institutional incentives to be productive, India’s MPs have no qualms in substituting debate with protests.

These disruptions, rather than individual actions, are usually a coordinated ploy by opposition parties too highlight the government’s failings and are met with a equal reaction by ruling parties who wish to stall discussion over a topic.

The blame game

This Budget Session was no different and both sides were to blame. First, the Congress and BJP pointed fingers at each other over the Nirav Modi scam at Punjab National Bank. Then, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), along with opposition parties, started protesting against the Centre’s decision to not give the state special category status. This led to a notice of a no-confidence motion, which was never brought to the floor, which only served to amplify the Opposition’s protests.

Even though the BJP had the seats to quash the no-confidence motion, it probably did not want to risk the scrutiny and questions that came with such a motion. Finally, the latter end of the session featured disruptions related to the Cauvery water sharing dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu as well as the Supreme Court’s dilution of the SC/STs Act.

The blame game and hollow gestures continued well after the end of the Budget Session. On April 5th, the members of the ruling administration said that they would forgo their salaries for the 23 wasted days in the second part of the Budget Session, which they attributed to the Congress. On April 9th, Rahul Gandhi led a nationwide, day-long fast to protest against the BJP government and the Parliament’s inability to function. The BJP responded with its own fast against the stalling of Parliamentary proceedings by opposition parties few days later.

No work no pay?

The decision of the BJP MPs to forgo their salaries has brought the notion of “no work no pay” back into the spotlight. As part of the latest Union Budget, the finance minister, Arun Jaitley, decided to double MPs monthly salaries from ₹50,000 to ₹100,000.

In 2007, when the BJP led the Opposition, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Somnath Chatterjee, proposed the concept of “no work no pay for MPs”, pointing to the obvious flaw in a system that allowed them to claim their daily allowance for sitting in Parliament even when the session was disrupted. Last month, Manoj Tiwari, a BJP MP and head of its Delhi unit, proposed the rule again.

While the rule makes sense on paper, it presupposes that MPs are motivated to work by their salaries. Many of them are rich to begin with. According to the Association of Democratic Reforms, 82% of the new Lok Sabha MPs in 2014 had a net worth of over ₹10 million. In fact, the average worth of an MPs assets was ₹146 million.

Perhaps the number of days could be increased. While this won’t raise productivity and will likely increase the burden of taxpayers, it could help tackle the growing pile of pending bills and allow more time for matters of public interest to be discussed. The Indian Parliament meets for roughly 70 days a year, compared to 150 in the UK and 140 in the US.

Furthermore, MPs are primarily motivated by votes. They are elected to represent the interests of the people who voted for them, not to add numbers to their parties’ protests in the house. It is the responsibility of voters to keep their representatives accountable. Parliamentary disruptions inhibit the functioning of our democracy. The disruptors should be rewarded accordingly when elections come around.