Challenges to the legislature

The legislature makes laws, oversees the government and approves the budget, and gives a place to discuss policies, development plans, relations with other countries and people's complaints.

The chapter then names its problems honestly:

• members often absent;
• uncooperative behaviour;
• lower quality of important debates;
• disruptions of the Question Hour.

Parliament meets three times a year: the Budget, Monsoon and Winter Sessions, usually sitting six hours a day, which can be extended for urgent business.

Now the measurement. 'Productivity' here means the hours a House actually worked compared with the hours it was scheduled to sit.

M. Venkaiah Naidu, then Rajya Sabha chairman, reported in 2021 that productivity was about 78% in 2004–14 and about 65% after. Four sessions he presided over recorded 6.80%, 27.30%, 28.90% and 29.55%, and 2018 saw the lowest ever at 35.75%, "under the impact of disruptions".

The number of sittings has fallen too:

Why does this matter? Because Parliament is where the government is questioned and bills are examined. Time lost is checking lost. The chapter also notes that a large share of Lok Sabha members have criminal cases against them, and that many debates are angry or one-sided instead of dealing with people's problems.

Its answer is not despair. Democracy grows stronger when citizens stay informed and involved: asking questions, joining the public consultations that government departments run online, and talking constructively with their representatives. As Atal Bihari Vajpayee said in the Lok Sabha: "Governments will come and go, parties will rise and fall. But the nation must endure, and its democracy must live on."