Eight Parliamentary Standing Committees under Rajya Sabha are meeting for more time now with the average duration of the deliberations crossing two hour mark for the first time in the past three years.
A study by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat on the directions of Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu also showed that the eight committees under the Upper House met for the longest duration during September 2019 - August 2020.
Parliament has 24 Department Related Parliamentary Standing Committees, which scrutinises Bills and other issues, out of which 16 are under Lok Sabha and the rest under Rajya Sabha.
The committees under Rajya Sabha met for a total duration of 254:27 hours in September 2019-August 2020, the longest of the last 3 years. During the three year period between 2017 and 2020, these panels held a total of 300 meetings over a duration of 571:22 hours.
The three-year average duration of meetings has been one hour 54 minutes and the average attendance is 45.35%.
However, in 2019-20, the average duration of the meeting was 2:10 hours. This marks an improvement of 55% over that of 2018-19 and an increase of 25% over the average of the previous two years. The average duration has been 1:51 hours during 2017-18 and 1:25 hours during 2018-19.
During September last year and August this year, the eight committees held 117 meetings and the attendance recorded was 49.20%, the highest in the past three years.
The average attendance had actually crossed the 50% mark in the first half of 2019-2020-- clocking 50.73% -- but the second half saw the attendance dropping to 41.15% due to Covid-19 pandemic.
Though the attendance dropped during the second half, the study said, the committees met for an average duration of 2:23 hours during the pandemic, which was one reason for the increase in average time on meetings.
During 2019-20, it said, the Committee on Home Affairs headed by senior Congress MP Anand Sharma has met for the longest duration of 47:27 hours followed by the Committee on Health and Family Welfare led by Samajwadi Party's Ramgopal Yadav -- 42:22 hours -- and the Committee on Human Resources Development led by Vinay Sahasrabudde -- 40L44 hours.
If one takes the time between 2017 and 2020, the Committee on HRD met for the longest duration of 100:05 hours followed by Home Affairs 87:17 hours, Transport, Tourism and Culture 80:11 hours, Health and Family Welfare 76.15 hours, Commerce 70:17 hours, Science and Technology and Environment, Forests and Climate Change 68.47 hours, Pensions, Public Grievances, Law and Justice 52:19 hours and Industry 36:11 hours.
Sources said that the Rajya Sabha Secretariat has analysed the functioning of the Committees of Rajya Sabha during the last three years as desired by Naidu. They said Naidu has been regularly reviewing the functioning of these committees and shared some of his concerns with the Chairmen of these committees in the recent past.
Naidu had earlier written to Rajya Sabha floor leaders urging them to ensure that their party members regularly attend the meetings of the Standing Committees.