CHAPTER – VI
MONITORING OF IMPLEMENTATION OF ASSURANCES
6.1 While replying to questions or supplementaries thereon or during discussion on Bills, Resolutions, Motions in Parliament, at times, Ministers give certain assurances, such as, that they will consider the matter, take action, furnish the required information etc. The Government is obliged to fulfil these assurances and present a Report. Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs is the coordinating agency to ensure that the Ministry fulfil their assurances in time.
General Procedure
6.2 The Ministry extracts from the daily proceedings of both Houses, assurances given by Ministers and forward the same to the Ministries/Departments concerned for taking necessary action thereon. There is a set of expressions for each House which constitute assurance to be fulfilled by the Government. These expressions are illustrative and not exhaustive. While treating statement of Minister as an assurance due consideration is given to the context in which it has been made and whether it is capable of being fulfilled within a reasonable time-frame.
6.3 All assurances given to the Parliament are required to be fulfilled within a period of three months. Where delay is anticipated by the Ministry on account of some genuine difficulties in fulfilling an assurance, the Committee on Government Assurances Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha are approached for grant of extension of time. In case the Ministry/Department do not find it feasible to fulfil an assurance for any valid reason, on the request of the Ministry, the Committee on Government Assurances Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha are approached to consider their request for dropping the assurance.
6.4 The Reports are laid on the Table of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha by the Minister/Minister of State of Parliamentary Affairs. Copies of the Reports laid are supplied to the Members concerned and are also kept in the Parliament Library.
6.5 The details of Assurances/extracted /fulfilled during the years 1985 to 1998 and the balance which remain to be implemented are as under:-
LOK SABHA
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Year
Number of During
the Number of Assurances fulfilled/dropped
Balance Percentage of
Assurances Year
under
Implementation.
recorded
report
Total
Fulfilled Dropped
Total
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
1985
1122
--
1121
--
--
1 99.91%
1986
1688
--
1686
--
--
2 99.88%
1987
2139
--
2134
5
--
5 99.76%
1988
2308
--
2300
4
--
8 99.65%
1989
1794
--
1777
4
2
17 99.05%
1990
2408
--
2378
5
1
30 98.75%
1991
1717
5
1679
10
--
38 97.78%
1992
2229
5
2174
23
--
55 97.53%
1993
1798
6
1720
23
--
78 95.71%
1994
1464
8
1371
30
--
93 93.64%
1995
1522
34
1379
69*
--
143 90.60%
1996
1696
51
1403
186*
13
293 82.73%
1997
1382
45
1046
381
8
336 75.68%
1998
1175
1175
231
231
--
944 19.65%
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
24442
1329
22399
971
24
2043 91.64%
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
* Re-open cases-2.
RAJYA SABHA
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Year Number
of
During the Number of
Assurances fulfilled/dropped
Balance Percentage of
Assurances
Year under
Implementation
recorded
report
Total
Total Fulfilled
Dropped
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
1985
1315
--
1314 --
--
1
99.22%
1986
1295
--
1295
--
--
--
100.00%
1987
1810
--
1801
9
1
9
99.50%
1988
1703
--
1698
4
1
5
99.70%
1989
1376
--
1357
5
--
19
98.61%
1990
1641
--
1606
4
--
35
97.86%
1991
1388
--
1363
4
1
25
98.19%
1992
2086
--
2061
20
3
25
98.80%
1993
1623
--
1587
18
1
36
97.78%
1994
1439
--
1357
29
--
82
94.30%
1995
1182
--
1079
43
3
103 91.28%
1996
738
--
613
85
2
125 83.06%
1997
773
5
558
217
3
215 72.18%
1998
753 753 126
126
--
627 16.73%
______________________________________________________________________________________________
19122 758
17815
564
15
1307
93.16%
______________________________________________________________________________________________
6.6 In addition to the above, 47 part Implementation Reports relating to the Lok Sabha and 17 part Implementation Reports relating to Rajya Sabha were also laid, during the period under report.
Action to clear pending assurances
6.7 The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs have been vigorously pursuing with all the Ministries/Departments for ensuring early implementation of Assurances given to Parliament. Periodic reviews are undertaken of all pending assurances and the Ministries/Departments are reminded to expedite implementation of the same. On 25.06.1998, the Minister of State for Railways, Parliamentary Affairs and Planning and Programme Implementation wrote to his Cabinet colleagues/Ministers of State, emphasizing the importance and need to speed up the implementation of assurances and for bringing about qualitative improvement in the replies given. The response from the Ministries/Departments shows that they are taking keen interest in the fulfilment of assurances.
6.8 The Ministry also undertook a scrutiny of all pending assurances with a view to bring out such assurances as have remained pending due to differences in the policy perceptions of the Governments/have lost relevance over the time/involve genuine difficulties in implementation or collection of voluminous information from various sources which is not forthcoming/which relate to controversial matters/cannot be dealt within the limited scope of question/assurance/within a prescribed time frame, for taking up with the Committee on Government Assurances of the Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha for dropping. The matter is further, being examined in consultation with the Ministries concerned at the Secretary level.
Report of the Committee on Government Assurances
6.9 The Committee on Government Assurances, Lok Sabha presented three reports, namely; I Report to the House on 08.12.1998 and II &III Reports on 17.12.1998 and Committee on Government Assurances Rajya Sabha presented its 44th and 45th Report on 7th July, 1998 and 46th Reports on 21.12.1998 respectively.
Home|
Content | Previous | Next