NEW DELHI: With a strength of just 32 MPs out of the 244 who populate the eight department related standing committees handled by Rajya Sabha, Congress MPs have a better attendance track record in comparison to their BJP counterparts, who account for 110 of the 224 MPs who are members of the DRSCs.

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’ 62% attendance with just 32 MPs. Smaller regional parties, which account for the remainder members, had a cumulative attendance of 40%.

On Monday, Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu told Rajya Sabha a total of 95 MPs did not attend a single meeting of the eight department-related parliamentary standing committees (DRSCs) that reviewed allocations for 18 ministries after the presentation of the 2020-21 Union Budget on February 1

Reviewing the functioning of the eight DRSCs handled by the Rajya Sabha secretariat, which have 244 members (166 from Lok Sabha and 78 from Rajya Sabha), Naidu said they held 20 meetings during the three-week parliamentary recess.

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 DRSCs, in turn, with 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 an attendance of 43.55%.

“In all, the work put in by the 24 DRSCs in examining the demands for grants of all ministries equals 30 days of functioning of Parliament, 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 every year in discharge of its functions,” said Naidu.

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. They are Rakesh Sinha (nominated), Dr L Hanumanthaiah (Congress), Ravi Prakash Verma (SP), Akhilesh Prasad Singh (Congress), P Wilson (DMK) and Sasmit Patra (BJD).

“While the overall attendance of MPs from the BJP and Congress, accounting for a total of 142 members, has been much higher than 50%, attendance of members from other parties, accounting for 102, has been only about 40%,” said Naidu.

“I would like to reiterate my appeal to leaders of all parties, floor leaders and members to ensure better attendance in the meetings of parliamentary committees so that they do justice to the mandate with which they have been conceived. This warrants qualitative and quantitative improvement,” he added.

