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Wednesday, Mar 16, 2005

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National

Speaker's move to ensure better attendance

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 15. With a view to ensuring better attendance by both members and ministers, the Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, today stirred the hornet's nest by stating that questions would not be taken up in the serial order from next week. When the Opposition objected to the move as soon as it was mooted, Mr. Chatterjee revised his decision and said the House could consider it before a final view was taken.

Making the announcement at the close of Question Hour, Mr. Chatterjee said: "From next week, we won't be bound by the serial number of questions. So members should be alert as also Ministers." However, the Deputy Leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Lok Sabha, V.K. Malhotra, raised an objection immediately; stating that this could lead to a situation where a question listed at 20 would be taken up first.

Amid demands that the issue be discussed by the Business Advisory Committee, the Speaker said: "Let us experiment. Let us consider it." According to him, the move was aimed at ensuring attendance since more often than not few members who had questions listed beyond the first four took any interest as it was assumed their chance would not come.

While this is an open issue, the Speaker today set a precedent with a brief statement on the business transacted over the past week. This, he said, would be a weekly feature every Tuesday. Besides recapitulating the business transacted by the House, the statement also details "the time — if any — lost due to disruptions and unscheduled adjournments."

In his statement, Mr. Chatterjee said in the three days the House met last week, 40 minutes were lost due to interruptions and forced adjournments. At the same time, he placed on record the fact that the House worked for six hours by dispensing with lunch hour on one day and sitting late on two days.

Normally such details are made available to the media at the end of every session, but the Speaker has decided to make it a weekly exercise. While the statement was initially scheduled to be made at the start of the day's proceedings, the Speaker decided to "lay his paper on the table of the House" after taking up questions to maintain the sanctity of Question Hour.

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