Press Briefing Monday, 10 August 2009

Shri Abhishek Singhvi addressed the media today.

Shri Singhvi said India is proud to be one of the few countries, perhaps the only one, emerging from the yoke of imperialism and yet surviving and prospering as a proud parliamentary democracy. Parliament is a vital part of our definition of a democracy. Parliament is a grand inquest and conscious keeper of the nation. In the recently concluded Parliament session we have truly restored parliamentary democracy to the pride of place it should occupy by having one of the most productive parliamentary sessions.

In this session we have had clearly a remarkably productive output of bills passed and more important declaration of legislative intent by introducing bills. Right to Education has already been addressed from this podium. Our commitment of historically deprived communities like SC/ST was reflected in the 109 Constitutional amendment further extending the reservations provided in the beginning of the Constitution. And apart from the main Budget and several appropriation bills, we also passed the metro bill which extends beyond the technical boundaries of Delhi -- the metro service to Gurgaon and so on.

Introduction of several other bills showed the intent of the government. We had an important National Green Tribunal Bill introduced which for the first time actually implements the creation of special environmental course, a promise which is being implemented.

Several other bills were also introduced like the Company bill, amendments to the national commission of minorities’ education and amendments to the Indian Trusts, Workers Compensation bill etc. These are all part of the inclusive programme of the UPA. Although this session is devoted to the Budget appropriation bills, we are happy that we could pass other bills and even more important introduce other bills.

We are happy and proud that Lok Sabha sat 4 per cent more than its schedule time. It achieved the strike rate of 104 per cent. We achieved the strike rate in Rajya Sabha of 113 per cent. A very good thing to note is that 196 members of Parliament participated on the Railway Budget. It is very good thing to know that 76 per cent of MPs in Lok Sabha participated in one debate or the other in the entire session. This was a productive, fruitful, a cooperative and a necessary enterprise in the public interest because democracy without Parliament and Parliament without democracy are both empty words. Lok Sabha spent 81 hours this time discussing the Budget and this it 59 per cent more than the average time spent on discussing the Budget in the past 10 years.
 

(Tom Vadakkan)

Secretary, AICC