RS AND LS TO HAVE STAGGERED TIMINGS

Preparations are on at a feverish speed for an 18-day monsoon session of Parliament from September 14 to October 1, with no usual break even on Saturdays and Sundays and the staggered sitting of one House in the mornings from 9 AM to 1 PM and another House in the second half of the day from 3 to 7 pm.

The LS will meet on the first day from 9 AM to 1 PM and in the afternoon slot on the remaining days. The Rajya Sabha will meet daily from 9 AM to 1 PM, except on Day 1, when it will assembly in the afternoon.

This was felt necessary since the MPs of the two Houses will sit in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Chambers as also in the galleries to ensure the social distancing norms in view of the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of the journalists covering the two Houses will be left out as they will have to depend on the live coverage provided by the Lok Sabha TV and the RS TV.

But for the Constitution mandating the gap of not more than six months between the sessions and the requirement of passing the Bills to legitimise over a dozen Ordinances lest they cease to operate are the two pressing needs to conduct the session despite the Covid-19 still raging in the country. The last budget session was shut down on March 23 and so it requires the monsoon session before September 23.

Much to the chagrin of the Opposition, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Ra

jya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu have jointly decided not to allow the question hour for oral questions and answers. The question hour is, however, not totally abandoned as the bulletins of the two Houses leave scope for questions and their written replies in what are called "Unstarred Questions". The bulletins say the MP has to give a 15-day notice to get the written answer and maximum 160 questions will be accommodated a day. There will be, however, no private members' business that otherwise takes place on every Friday.