President Pranab Mukherjee for longer Parliament and Assembly sessions; more time for finance matters

SHILLONG: President Pranab Mukherjee today said Parliament and state Assemblies should hold more sessions and meet for longer period and also devote adequate time for discussing finance matters so that the Executive is "kept on its toes."

Mukherjee also stressed the need for political leaders to engage in dialogue to keep fundamentals of democracy alive and referred to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's decision to set up a high-level committee during Anna Hazare movement to engage in dialogue process with representatives of the civil society.

"Nothing prevents us from calling frequent sessions of Parliament and Assembly and to meet for longer period like 26 weeks, but we find many assemblies meet for only six weeks in a full year in two three sessions," the President said, addressing a special session of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly here.

The President said this should be the approach even though Constitutional provisions say the time gap between the last day of the previous session and the first day of the next session should not be more than six months.

"This is one area where I would like to suggest that more time should be given to debate, discuss and scrutiny, so that the executive is kept on its toes," he said.

Stressing the need for legislators to devote more time in deliberations on finance, money, plan, budget, expenditure and proposals, Mukherjee said this is important because the financial plan size of the country has gone up from a mere Rs 271 crore in 1947-48 to a mammoth Rs 16 lakh crore in 2013-14.

On the importance of dialogue with NGOs and members of the civil society, the President said the divergence of democracy can be narrowed down to dialogue, adding 787 MPs, 4,225 MLAs of 28 states cannot speak on behalf of more than 122 crore people.

"The Prime Minister could have said that there was no need for talking or dialogue. But we tried to understand their view points. It (the dialogue) did not achieve the desired results but there was a process of dialogue," he said referring to the dialogue process initiated during Hazare's anti-corruption movement in 2011 in Delhi.

The President also said "disruption" has become the "fourth D" besides debate, dissension and decision in India's democracy which is affecting normal functioning of parliamentary democracy.

"If we do not do our duty and indulge in indiscipline and involve in disruption of proceedings of the House, it is a great betrayal of the people," he said.