MPs demand online House panel meeting

NEW DELHI: Days before a parliamentary panel is due to discuss India’s preparedness to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic and similar outbreaks likely in the future, lawmakers have renewed demands for meeting online without being physically present.

Science and technology committee chairman Jairam Ramesh, who will head the discussions, has written to Rajya Sabha chairman N. Venkaiah Naidu seeking his approval for panel members to meet online.

“Many members of the committee have expressed their inability to attend this meeting because of travel restrictions, quarantine and other constrains. I am doubtful if we can muster up a quorum,” Ramesh wrote and reminded him on Twitter, “Where there is will, there is skill!”

Parliament authorities have spent hours to work out how to conduct meetings online, but to no avail, as depositions and discussions are wrapped in layers of secrecy. Lawmakers say just an approval from Naidu and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla is required for respective panels under the two Houses to take the process online.

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP Dayanidhi Maran too wrote to Anand Sharma, chairman of the panel on home affairs, making a similar request.

“With different states having different guidelines and travel advisories, quarantine regulations, standard operating procedures on entry/return, it becomes very complicated for members to attend the committee meetings,” he wrote to Sharma.

He expressed concern that to Delhi would mean “exposing myself to the Covid virus” and how it would affect his parliamentary duties in his constituency.

His party colleague Tiruchi Siva has written to civil aviation minister Hardeep Puri, asking him to ensure that airlines keep the middle seats empty to avoid contact between passengers.