Parliament Passes 16 Bills during April to November 2022
The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs serves as an important link between the two Houses of Parliament and the Government in respect of Government Business in Parliament. Created in May, 1949 as a Department, it soon became a full-fledged Ministry with the allotment of more responsibilities and functions.
The Ministry strives to provide comprehensive and quality services to a Body of Citizens comprising, the Parliament and its Members as well as Ministries/Departments and other Organizations of Government of India and State Governments. A glimpse of the performance of the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs during current fiscal (from April to November 2022) is as under:
Legislative Business:
A total of 33 Bills (9 Bills in the Lok Sabha and 24 Bills in the Rajya Sabha) were pending at the conclusion of 7th Session of Seventeenth Lok Sabha and 255th Session of Rajya Sabha (Winter Session,2021). 19 Bills were introduced (18 in the Lok Sabha and 1 in the Rajya Sabha) during the period, making a total of 52 Bills. Out of these, 16 Bills were passed by both the Houses. 1 Bill, (in Lok Sabha) was withdrawn. A total of 35 Bills (7 Bills in the Lok Sabha and 28 Bills in the Rajya Sabha) were pending in both Houses of Parliament at the conclusion of 9th Session of Seventeenth Lok Sabha and 257nd Session of Rajya Sabha (Monsoon Session, 2022). The details of Sessions held during the period are as under:
Budget Session 2022:
The Budget Session, 2022 of Parliament was held from Monday 31st January, 2022 to Thursday 7th of April 2022. In between, both the Houses were adjourned for recess on Friday, the 11th February, 2022 to reassemble on Monday, the 14th March, 2022 to enable Departmentally related Standing Committee to examine and report on the Demands for Grants relating to various Ministries/Department.
The first part of the Budget Session yielded a total of 10 sittings of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. In the second part of the Session, there were 17 sittings of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. During the entire Budget Session, 2022, there were in total 27 sittings in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. During this Session, a total of 13 Bills (12 in Lok Sabha and 01 in Rajya Sabha) were introduced. 13 Bills were passed by Lok Sabha and 11 Bills were passed by Rajya Sabha. Total number of Bills passed by both the Houses of Parliament were 11.
Financial Business:
The Union Budget for 2022-23 was presented to the Lok Sabha on Tuesday the 1st February, 2022. General discussions on Union Budget were held in both the Houses. The Lok Sabha also discussed and voted the Demands for Grants 2022-23, Supplementary Demands for Grants for the year 2021-22 and Demands of Excess Grants for 2018-19.
Supplementary Demand for Grant in respect of the State of Jammu and Kashmir for 2021-22, Demands for Grants in respect of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir for the year 2022-23 were also discussed and voted by Lok Sabha.
Rajya Sabha also returned all the related Appropriation Bills and the entire Financial Business was completed before 31st March, 2022.
The Monsoon Session 2022 of Parliament:
The Monsoon Session 2022 of Parliament was held from Monday the 18th of July, 2022 to Monday the 8th of August, 2022. The session provided for 16sittings spreading over a period of 22 days.
During the Session, 6 Bills (6 in Lok Sabha) were introduced. 7 Bills were passed by Lok Sabha and 5 Bills were passed by Rajya Sabha. Total number of Bills passed by both the Houses of Parliament was 5. One Bill was withdrawn in Lok Sabha.
Digitization of Legislatures through National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA):
National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) is an end-to-end cloud based digital solution for bringing all the 39 Legislatures (Lok Sabha + Rajya Sabha + 31 Assemblies + 6 Councils) across the country including the 2 Houses of the Parliament on a single platform. It has been developed on the theme of ‘One Nation- One Application’. The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs (MoPA) has been entrusted with the responsibility of rolling out NeVA in all the Legislatures across the country.
The NeVA Application has been developed to cater various stakeholders like Members, Ministers, House Secretariat personnel, Govt. Department personnel and Citizens at large. Developed as a member centric application, it enables them to handle diverse House Business smartly by putting entire information needed by them in their hand-held devices/ tablets. It also helps the Ministers to have access to all the House Information like Question Replies, Bills, other Papers laid, etc. It equips all the Branches of Legislatures/ Department to handle it efficiently and creating an efficient inclusive database thereby overhauling the way our legislatures work with facilities for Live webcasting. Moreover, NeVA not only aims to bring democracy closer to our citizens by giving the citizens access to the bills, the questions and answers, the documents tabled in the Houses in an easy manner, but also to empower them by providing an opportunity to the citizens for meaningful engagement with the democracy which can be achieved through e-Constituency Management Module and Grievance Module.
Operationalization of this electronic platform would account for huge savings on papers (App. 340 Cr annually), thereby leading to reduction of carbon footprints and moving a step forward in the achievement of UN’s SDGs (15)- ‘Life on Earth’.
The President and Prime Minister had also urged the Presiding Officers for digitalization of all the Legislative Houses in the country by adopting the NeVA to reap the benefits of the Digital Legislatures in the present scenario.
The MoPA has recently developed the new module ‘Digital Archive’ for management of the legacy data of respective House for the benefit of Members and citizen equally. The Reporter’s module has also been re-developed. Digital House module, Question processing module, committee module, member’s module, master content management module, user management module, etc. have also been upgraded as per the requirements of various Legislatures. The NeVA website has also been updated with various new features and latest designs.
