Expressing concern over Parliament approving important legislative business without much debate, President Pranab Mukherjee today asked the Lok Sabha Speaker to find ways to devote more time for discussions on businesses such as passing of the Finance Bill.

“...as the Speaker (Lok Sabha) is present here, I would also like to take the opportunity of sharing my concern that we are not devoting adequate time in Parliament while sanctioning money, while imposing taxes, before scrutiny of the law, before scrutiny of expenditure proposals despite the establishment of an institutional arrangement like the Parliamentary Standing Committee not taking place before the passage of the Finance Bill,” he said.

“Therefore, much more time is required to be devoted either for legislations and for sanctioning money dealing with the financial transactions and both Chairman PAC (public accounts) and Speaker may ponder over and find a practical solution to achieve this objective,” he said at the inauguration of the Accountant General conference here.

The President said many studies conducted by Parliament itself indicated the time devoted for legislations in the first, second, third and fourth Lok Sabha for disposing off financial matters were much more compared to later Parliaments.

“Therefore, I do feel that the time has come to take some corrective courses. As it has been correctly pointed out by Speaker, Parliament has three important committees — PAC, estimates committee, and committee on public undertakings through which Parliament can exercise control not only over the policies, but also on how money was spent, how resources are utilised, how resources are mobilised,” he said.

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