Disruptions rendering Lok Sabha irrelevant: Speaker

Speaker Meira Kumar today expressed "great concern" over the House not functioning due to frequent disruptions, resulting in the loss of nearly 50 hours of sitting and gradually rendering the institution "irrelevant"."It is a matter of great concern that the House did not function on many days due to frequent disruptions. In this session, while we lost over 69 hours and 51 minutes due to interruptions and forced adjournments, the House sat late for 19 hours and 38 minutes to compensate the time lost," she said before adjourning the House sine die.Kumar said during second phase of the budget session, the House could take up questions only on nine days. "Questionsare central to ensuring executive accountability.Parliamentarydemocracy can survive only if members allow the House tofunction. Disruption of the House will gradually render thisinstitution irrelevant," she said.During the session, the House had 32 sittings spread over 137 hours and 50 minutes and of these, 15 sittings were held in the first part of the session and rest in the second part. 

The House had taken up 620 starred questions, of which only 76 were answered orally. "Thus, on an average, only about 2.37 questions could be answered per day. Written replies to remaining starred questions along with 7,029 unstarred questions were laid on the table," she said.For the first time in the history of India's Parliament, cut motions on the demands, which were not discussed in the House and which were guillotined, were treated as moved and were negatived.The House debated for 19 hours and 31 minutes matters of public importance such as price rise, Maoist attack on CRPF men at Dantewada in Chattisgarh, and the need to lay down specific parameters for conducting the Census 2011. The incident of radiation exposure in a Delhi scrap market was also discussed in the Lower House.