GERARD DE SOUZA
PANJIM: Ever wondered what your elected representatives are busy doing in the august Goa legislative assembly, the seat of law makers?
Figures sifted from the Assembly Bulletin Part – I of the recently concluded sixth session of the sixth Goa legislative assembly shows that the legislative assembly has spent a whopping 6:05 hours congratulating themselves and others while spending only around 50 minutes over five days debating and passing legislation, one of which was the Mayem evacuees property bill.
A large quantum of time –nearly three hours (2:48 hours to be precise) were spent on congratulating the Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar for winning awards in education, infrastructure, investment and macro economy and the ‘Best Small State Award’” at the India Today ‘States Conclave’ at New Delhi.
The house also spent over 50 minutes congratulating Porvorim legislator Rohan Khaunte for receiving the Adarsh Yuva Vidhayak Puraskar 2013 for his “contribution to Indian democracy.”
Data shows that the assembly has spent the single largest quantum of its time on congratulatory motions spending more than six of the total 20 hours that it sat during the budget session of the Goa assembly. That’s close to one third of the total time the 40 legislators have been in session.
Compared to this, 50 minutes were spent by the house actually debating and passing legislation among the five days that they were sitting during the session that completed last week.
42 of the 50-odd minutes were spent on debating and passing of the Goa Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (First Amendment) Bill as well as the Goa (Abolition of Proprietorships, Titles and Grants of Lands) Bill, 2014 which was passed after a brief discussion in which only five legislators spoke including the leader of opposition, Mayem MLA Anant Shet, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenço and Vishnu Wagh.
Question Hour which is a mandatory part of proceedings, except on the first day clocked four hours.
Among other activities that took the time of the house was the discussion on the motion of thanks to the Governor’s Address moved by Sankhali MLA Pramod Sawant and Sanguem MLA Ganesh Gaonkar which took a total of 3:16 hours.
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar also spent 1:40 hours delivering his budget speech.
The Goa state legislative assembly sits from 11:30 am till lunch break usually at 1 pm and resumes after lunch break at 2:30 pm and goes on till 4. After a half hour tea break the house resumes at 4:30 pm and goes on till 6:00 pm. But more often than not it either ends before or after depending on the business scheduled for the day. Generally the house is expected to work for four and a half hours each day.
