Deadlock in winter session costs nation another Rs 171 crore

22 days long deadlock in the winter session of Parliament has cost nation another Rs 171 crore loss due to the opposition’s protests and adjournments over the controversial 2G allocation scam. The 22 consecutive day’s long shutdown has proved to be the longest shutdown of parliament in the history of the nation.

When we take an overview of statistics, the 2G spectrum allocation issue proved to be such a volatile affair that the Lok Sabha could barely function for seven hours and 30 minutes during the total 23 sittings, thereby losing 124 hours and 40 minutes in the just concluded session.

Almost every day of the session began with anti-government slogans by opposition lawmakers who gathered near the presiding officer’s podium demanding JPC into a scam that forced A. Raja to resign from Manmohan Singh’s cabinet ministry.

As per report of the sources, the logjam over the formation of Joint parliamentary Committee led to a loss of Rs.7.8 crore a day to the national exchequer, which translates into Rs.1.3 crore per hour as each sitting is of six hours each day. That means nearly Rs.172 crore (Rs.1.72 billion) of the Indian tax payer’s money went down the drain.
This earned this winter session a dubious record of being the least productive ever – with only seven of the scheduled 138 hours of business conducted.

While talking to media, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said that it was opposition who led to the wash out of the session. However, Sushma Swaraj, leader of opposition in Lok Sabha said that it was congress who led to the non- functioning of parliament.

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