Budget Session highly productive; 18 bills passed by both houses: Prahlad Joshi

New Delhi, Mar 25 () As many as 18 bills were passed in the Budget Session of Parliament which concluded on Thursday and both houses recorded "higher productivity", Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi said.

A total of 20 bills were introduced during the session which commenced on January 29 and adjourned sine die on Thursday before its scheduled conclusion on April 8.

"The session, which was originally scheduled to have sittings till April 8, was curtailed due to demand of leaders of various political parties in both the houses so that members could participate in the election process in certain states/union territories," Joshi told reporters after the adjournment of both the houses.

He said during the entire session, there were 24 sittings of the Lok Sabha and 23 of the Rajya Sabha. The first part of the session yielded a total of 12 sittings of the lower house and 11 of the upper house. Both houses had 12 sittings each in the second part of the session.

Joshi said the budget session was highly productive due to the cooperation of parliamentarians from all parties.

During this session, a total of 20 bills (17 in Lok Sabha and 3 in Rajya Sabha) were introduced and 18 of them were passed by the Lok Sabha and 19 by the Rajya Sabha. The total number of bills passed by both houses of parliament is 18, he said.

Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha were adjourned for recess on February 12 and February 13 respectively and reassembled on March 8 to enable departmentally-related standing committees to examine and report on the demands for grants relating to various ministries/departments. JTR RHL