National index soon to rank state legislatures’ performance, says Birla

LOk Sabha verbaliser Om Birla on sat proclaimed plans to go down up a subject legislative index that will rank state assemblies and legislative councils on the basis of their performance, in the first such effort aimed at encouraging productivity of legislatures.“We will create an index that will look at various issues such as duration of sitting, how far the topics of discussion are related to common people’s issues, and quality of debates. We are currently discussing it with the chairpersons of the legislative councils,” Birla said during a press conference on the sidelines of the 11th meeting of the India chapter of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.Birla said the index will be finalised in the upcoming meeting of presiding officers in Lucknow next year.This is the first such effort to evaluate the performance of legislative bodies, which essentially depends on the performance of the lawmakers. Authorities pointed out that it is the latest reform mulled by Birla, who has been active in giving more resources to legislative assemblies.At the special general assembly of the conference on Saturday, Delhi assembly speaker Vijender Gupta raised this issue. “Increasingly, passage of bills or budgets have become a formality. There is no major discussion. Many times, a bill is introduced, discussed and passed in one go. Slowly, our parliamentary affair is shrinking and it is moving towards mere formality,” Gupta told HT.“How can it change? The National E-Vidhan application has come. Now, all the assemblies’ records are available on a forum. We want an index to be made by the assemblies and according to that every assembly’s output, outcome, effectivity will be ranked.”Birla pointed out that an expert committee’s report on creating such an index has been submitted and the final decision on the same will be taken next year.According to people aware of the details, the index will have a number of objective parameters to judge the performance of a House. This includes the quality and productivity of the assembly, the effectiveness of House committees, and the legislative outcome.“What kind of bills are coming; how much work is being done in the public interest; what are the innovative methods adopted in a House; and what has been done for transparency, are some of the basic parameters. Work on digitisation, its effectiveness, technological integration, how AI tools are being used and what research works and fellowship programmes [are being undertaken], would also be looked at during evaluation,” Gupta said.While some presiding officers suggested that outside agencies should be involved, Birla said that it will be entirely handled by the legislatures themselves.