Member of Lok Sabha
Relaxed Job of the Year
Most jobs require you to work at least 8 hours a day. Similarly, in most of the jobs, serve at least 240 days in a year, considering five working days a week, and in these jobs, you cannot take leave without permission.
Now imagine, if there was a job where there were only 6 hours of work per day, and the maximum days you need to work were only 151 days. In this job, you could take leave without permission for 60 days. Isn’t it the most relaxed job on the planet? Will you not want to take this job opportunity? Now guess, what is this job?
This unique job is of the member of Lok Sabha!
The Lok Sabha (House of the People) is the lower house of India’s bicameral Parliament. Recently in school, we had learned about Lok Sabha and all its parliamentary procedures, which was when I realised, that the life of a member of Lok Sabha is as relaxed as it can get.
First, there are only three times the members of the house meet to conduct business, which are the three sessions of the year-
- Budget session (February to May)
- Monsoon session (July to September)
- Winter session (November to Mid-December)
Even out of these, only two are mandatory. The only rule is that the gap between two sessions can’t be over six months. To date, the maximum number of days Lok Sabha has been working is 151 days in the year 1956.
During these working days, when the members conduct their business most of the times, the sitting of the house gets suspended (called Adjournment of the house) due to two reasons-
- When there is too much shouting and screaming going on in the house, it becomes difficult for the presiding officer (the speaker) to control it (which almost happens every time).
- Or when the minimum number of members required to be present in the house to conduct business (called quorum) are unavailable. Only 1/10th of the total membership of the house has to be present to transact business, which is the quorum.
If the house manages not to get adjourned, the day of the members starts from 11 in the morning, and within two hours, once they become tired, they get a lunch break by 1 in the afternoon! Post lunch, they again meet for four hours.
Within the two hours before lunch, to keep the government open to scrutiny, questions are formally asked within the first hour, called the Question Hour. In the Question Hour, before asking questions, a ten-day notice has to be given. Really? Ten days! The only exception to this is the Short Notice Question. Short Notice Questions, asked regarding matters of urgent importance, do not need a ten-day notice, and it is up to the member whether he wants to answer the question or not as per their convenience.
Anyway, let us talk about how a member’s seat can get vacated. One of the condition is that if a member is absent from all meetings without notifying the house for sixty days. Yes, you heard that right, a holiday of two months! Let an IT personal try that kind of bold task.
After I learned about all this from school, I had only one thought:
“How I wish I were a member of Lok Sabha!”
I feel these policies of our government bodies are still under the influence of British rule. These policies were not aimed at the common good of the people, instead, they were for the ease of the British government officials. They worked at their leisure because they considered themselves superior, but these policies still exist after freedom.
I hope that soon these lazy policies and laws of the government bodies, created during the British era, can be looked into and changed to make our government more efficient so that our country can reach the zenith of progress.
