A year after the winter session of Parliament ended amid opposition protests and a record high suspension of MPs, this year’s winter session was marred by daily protests inside and outside the premises, disruption of legislative work, and eventually leading to alleged injuries and eventual clashes. FIR against Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi
As far as work goes, the winter session was the least productive since the Narendra Modi-led NDA government came to power a decade ago, data from PRS Legislative Research and the Lok Sabha Secretariat show.
With 52% of its planned time, or 62 hours, actually spent working, the Lok Sabha’s winter session was the least productive since the 2023 monsoon session. Since 2014, only eight other seasons have been less productive. In contrast, the previous session, which was the post-election budget session, worked 135% of the scheduled time or more than 115 hours.
There was also a decrease in productivity in the Rajya Sabha. The upper house worked for only 44 hours or 39 percent of the scheduled time compared to 93 hours or 112 percent of the scheduled time in the previous session. Not since the 2023 budget session has the Rajya Sabha been so unproductive.
Proportion of scheduled time spent working on LS and RS
Of the time spent working, only 23 hours in the Lok Sabha and nine hours in the Rajya Sabha were devoted to legislative work. Most of the time of this session was spent in discussions on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the constitution in both houses.
The winter session of the Lok Sabha held 20 sittings, the most in any session this year, with 65 hours lost in the adjournment of the lower house. Only two sessions since 2014 have lost more hours to disruptions – 78 hours in the monsoon session of 2021 and 96 hours in the budget session of 2023.
Hours lost in interruptions
But despite these setbacks, the Lok Sabha sat for only 22 extra hours to make up for lost time. In the previous budget session after the election, the House sat for 34 hours more.
In terms of bills introduced and passed, this session is the lowest compared to the current and previous Lok Sabha. Only five bills were introduced and four were passed, except for the special session of 2023, the lowest in the last five years when only the women’s reservation bill was passed.
Bills introduced and passed
Two of the new bills introduced in this session were in the bill ‘One Nation, One Election’ propositionWhich has been sent to the Joint Committee of the Parliament for further investigation. The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, which was referred to a parliamentary panel and was expected to be tabled in this session, was moved to the next session.
Despite the disruption, no bill was debated in the Lok Sabha for less than five hours this session. While the Banking Law (Amendment) Bill, 2024 was discussed for about five hours, the Disaster Management (Amendment) Bill, 2024 was discussed for about seven and a half hours.
Question hour was also less productive. Compared to 86 questions in the previous session, only 61 starred questions were answered verbally in the House.
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