With the passage of a total of 32 Bills in 35 sittings of the Rajya Sabha, Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday expressed his delight for setting a "new normal" in the "highly productive" 249th session, which was the best in 17 years.
"I am glad that my optimism has come true during this session. With great pleasure, I have a turnaround story to report to all of you and the people of the country who have been patiently waiting for such a turnaround in the form of a functional House breaking from the disruptive past," Naidu said before the sine die of the Budget Session of the upper house.
"In terms of legislative output, with the passage of 32 bills during these 35 sittings, this session is the best in the last 17 years accounting for 52 sessions," he said.
Bills passed during this session such as the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, widely known as the Triple Talaq bill and Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill are significant in terms of their impact on the "social and economic landscape" of the country, he said.
According to the data available, the 131st session in 1984 was the most productive in which 37 bills were passed in the upper house in the last 41 years since 1978. While in the 197th session in 2002, a total of 35 bills were passed.
"This session is also the fifth best in this regard in the last 41 years," said Naidu, adding that in the last five sessions (244 to 248) only 33 bills were passed. While productivity of the House was at 104.92 per cent in terms of utilisation of available time, this session is the best in the last 5 years since 2014 and coming after 17 sessions.
"During the last five sessions, the productivity of the House ranged from a low of 7.44 per cent to maximum of 65.60 per cent," said Naidu informing that Rajya Sabha reported cent per cent productivity for the first time in the last five years.
Naidu also appreciated the "spirit of mutual understanding and accommodation" between opposition and ruling sections while passing bills such as the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill and the National Medical Council Bill, where rights of states were protected by accepting suggestions by the government. Naidu also appealed to members to sustain the new momentum, without going back to previous sessions.
"Having reached a new normal in this session, the task now before all of us is to sustain it without getting back to old ways," he said.
Naidu also lauded the members for usage of mother tongue during debates. "The important highlight of this session is that many members spoke in their mother tongue. This is happy news for the country and happy news for me personally," said Naidu before adjourning the House sine die.
