15 days of parliament logjam cost nation over Rs 95 cr

NEW DELHI: The Opposition and government may be slugging it out over the losses caused to the national exchequer due to the 2G spectrum allocation but their stand-off has resulted in wastage of over Rs 95 crore on account of Parliament not functioning for the last 15 days.

The Winter Session began on November 9 and since a day after it, the Opposition has been hellbent on their demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee ( JPC) probe into 2G spectrum allocation, which is believed to have resulted in losses to the tune of Rs 1.74 lakh crore.

The government has, however, refused to yield to the demand, leading to a deadlock because of which Parliament has been unable to function for more than 10 minutes per day on an average.

According to official figures, the total budget for Lok Sabha for the current fiscal year is Rs 347.65 crore while it is Rs 172.33 crore for Rajya Sabha.

The Ministry for Parliamentary Affairs, responsible for the functioning of Parliament, also has a separate budget of Rs 7.47 crore, taking the combined allocation to Rs 527.45 crore.

This includes salaries and other allowances of MPs, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of both the Houses, the expenditure incurred for the member's foreign visits and meeting the expenses for foreign delegations visiting India.

In a year, Parliament meets thrice -- for the Budget, Monsoon and Winter session. As per the business schedule of both the Houses, there should be a total of 83 sittings this financial year -- 35 sittings during the Budget session and 24 each in the other two sessions.

This means, on average the government is spending Rs 6.35 crore per day to run the institution.

Today is the 15th consecutive day of the Winter session that ended without doing any business, which means that Rs 95.25 crore were spent without Parliament transacting any substantive business.