Rs 10 crore was lost to disruptions in the Rajya Sabha
The Winter Session of Parliament which began on November 26 ended on Wednesday, with the Rajya Sabha having worked for just half of the time allotted to work.
Here is a look at the statistics from the session:
The Rajya Sabha where the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is in a minority, lost 55 hours to disruptions by the Opposition. It was scheduled to work for 112 hours during the session. Chairman Hamid Ansari, in his concluding remarks said the session till last week had "seemed singularly unproductive in terms of legislative work."
Parliamentary Affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu said the Congress came up with "manufactured lame excuses" to disrupt Parliament, day after day. "The principal opposition party in both houses has to take the blame for all that has gone wrong," he said.
The Lok Sabha, where the BJP has a comfortable majority, worked for 115 hours - an hour extra compared to the scheduled 114 hours. "They have greater numbers in the Rajya Sabha so they don't let it function," Mr Naidu said, adding that the Lok Sabha was able to pass bills and function despite the disruptions because the Congress is in a minority there.
The cost of running each House is Rs 29,000 per minute and the loss of hours in the Rajya Sabha has resulted in a loss of nearly Rs 10 Crore to the exchequer.
The Lok Sabha passed 14 Bills registering 104 per cent productivity. The Rajya Sabha, however, passed nine bills registering 46 per cent productivity. The Goods and Services Tax bill, could not be passed in this session, endangering the reform which needs to be rolled out by April 1, 2016.
The Lok Sabha spent nearly 50 hours on non-legislative business and 33 hours on legislation, according to statistics compiled by the Parliament tracking agency PRS Legislative Research.
The Upper House spent 37 hours on non-legislative work and less than 10 hours on legislation. 65 per cent of its time was spent on non-legislative business.
The Question Hour - one hour set off every working day of each session exclusively for members to question various ministries on their functioning - in Lower House achieved 87 per cent productivity, clocking nearly 15 hours.
In the Rajya Sabha, the Question Hour clocked only 14 per cent productive time at just 2.4 hours for the entire session.
After days of repeated diruptions, the Rajya Sabha functioned for five hours at a stretch on December 22, to pass the new juvenile justice bill which had been passed by the Lok Sabha in May.
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