Fixing minimum Parliamernt sittings not feasible: Government

Government does not consider it feasible to mandate a minimum sitting of Parliament through a legislation or law, parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal told Rajya Sabha today.
   
"The sittings of Lok Sabha were 125 in 1958 and that of Rajya Sabha were 91. The sittings of both Houses of Parliament were 46 in 2008," he said, replying to questions.
   
About 30% of the House time is currently wasted and effort should be made to utilise the time that has been allocated.
   
If legislative business needs more time, the sittings of Parliament can be increased but it was not practical to make minimum sittings mandatory through law, he said adding the intervening period between two sessions was currently utilised by various Parliamentary Committees.
   
The government, he said, did not consider it practical mandating a minimum number of sitting through law.
   
The Constitution mandates that there should not be more than six month gap between two sittings of Parliament but never has the gap exceeded three months, he said.
   
Bansal said parliamentary systems in other democratic countries cannot be compared with India as it varies depending upon requirements specific to the need of those countries.