NEW DELHI: During his days as one of the world’s greatest batsmen, bowlers prayed that Sachin Tendulkar would play and miss. Now he seems to be missing but still playing. Tendulkar isn’t spotted very often in Parliament but is said to be diligent about his duties as a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha — outside the House.In the winter session, Tendulkar posed as many as seven questions in the Rajya Sabha in a fortnight. That’s the first time his queries have been selected since being nominated as a member of Parliament in 2012 by the former Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. Tendulkar wasn’t present in the House when his questions were answered through written replies.He’s attended Parliament on 13 of 235 days in the 12 sessions since he joined, Rajya Sabha records showed. In November, Tendulkar was appointed for the first time to a standing committee — on information technology, headed by BJP MP Anurag Thakur.Thakur is also involved in cricket administration. Tendulkar hasn’t attended any of the meetings though nor was he part of the fiveday study tour of the North-East by the committee. In August, when Tendulkar’s leave application came up for consideration in the Rajya Sabha, many of his colleagues had objected, asking why he was not coming to Parliament.Tendulkar did not offer any comment to a detailed questionnaire sent by ET last Friday. But people close to him pointed out that Tendulkar has been working on matters critical to membership of the Upper House other than attendance. One, he is among the best-performing nominated lawmakers when it comes to utilising funds under the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS).Records reviewed by ET show Tendulkar has exhausted 98 per cent of his MPLADS funds, making allocations for flood relief in Jammu and Kashmir and Tamil Nadu and rebuilding a school and bridge in Chamoli in the aftermath of the Uttarakhand floods. Tendulkar wrote to junior Statistics and Programme Implementation Minister VK Singh on December 14 committing Rs 50 lakh from his MPLADS fund to Tamil Nadu relief.Nominated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a Swachh Bharat ambassador, Tendulkar has leant his support to initiatives such as building toilets in Mumbai’s Goregaon and school infrastructure in remote parts of Maharashtra and West Bengal, people close to him said.The cricketer-turned-lawmaker is said to be most proud of his efforts to develop the village of Puttamraju Kandriga in Andhra Pradesh’s Nellore district, which he adopted under PM’s Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana last year. The ministry of rural development has identified the transformation in this village in terms of roads, water, electricity and sanitation as among the seven best performers under the project. This was showcased in a documentary that was shown at a conference in Bhopal earlier this year. Tendulkar adopted the village after meeting a former collector of the district once on a flight.Tendulkar is also an active writer of letters to ministers, championing sports and other issues, according to documents accessed by ET. He’s been in constant correspondence with Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani on the matter of making the pursuit of an active sport by a student part of the syllabus. School activities should go beyond the annual sports day, he said in a letter to her in January.This was also the subject of one of his recent questions in Parliament. Irani said in her reply that a committee for integration of sports in higher education had been set up as part of consultations for a new education policy.On December 14, Tendulkar wrote to Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on confusion over the National Athletics Meet for Schools and highlighted how former star athletes PT Usha and Anju Bobby George had been campaigning for this to be held in Kerala. The issue was quickly resolved with the southern state agreeing to hold the event.Tendulkar also wrote several letters to the sports minister to intervene in the ban imposed on boxer Sarita Devi last year after an incident at the Asian Games in Seoul in 2014. His efforts played a part in reducing the life ban imposed on her. Devi has now resumed her career, officials told ET.Last year, Tendulkar wrote to Sonowal on the plight of the Kashmiri willow industry. The wood was the source of some of his early cricket bats, he recalled. He also wrote about this to then Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah and his counterparts in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab – Akhilesh Yadav and Parkash Singh Badal, respectively. Meerut in UP and Jalandhar in Punjab are the main bat manufacturing hubs that use Kashmiri willow. Tendulkar has time until 2018 to improve on his attendance. His rival in this respect is Bollywood actress Rekha, who is said to be as reclusive in Parliament as she is everywhere else.