The panel meeting of the Parliament that works with the Home Ministry planned to be held on Wednesday stands cancelled as some members of the parliament informed about their inability to reach the destination and be present at the meeting because of curtailment of travel and transportation facilities.
Since the lockdown was declared two months before, this was the first meeting to be organised by the parliament indicating their resumption of operations. This time the Standing Committee on Home Affairs was planning to meet all the members in person on June 3 and not through video conferences or meetings.
Anand Sharma, the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Home Ministry had summoned the meeting and all the information regarding the conference like the date, place, time, plan and the program was conveyed to the members.
The agenda was to provide a brief summary to the committee members that was scheduled to be delivered by the Union Home Secretary on the present situation emerging because of the corona virus-induced lockdown and how the Home Ministry has been dealing with it.
A list of questions was likely to be thrown at the officials of the Home Ministry about their plan of action and the techniques applied by them in finalizing and working on the four lockdown phases, instructions and guidelines discharged by the Ministry of Home Affairs and regarding the reduction in restrictions.
On Monday M Venkaiah Naidu and Om Birla, the officers of the two Houses of the parliament met and discussed the matter and after receiving briefs from the officials decided that it would be a better idea to organise meetings on part of the various committee chairmen only after verifying and confirming the attendance of members.
The meeting was cancelled in view of the response from some of the parliament members who expressed their lack of ability to plan travel because of the quarantine rules and restrictions in certain places.
According to sources, the meeting scheduled on June 3 was cancelled as there was a situation of panic and uncertainty of whether some members of the parliament would be present or not. The presiding officers were made aware and well informed by the officials of the Two Houses of the parliament that over the past three years 45 per cent of average attendance was recorded in the meetings of the department of eight associated Standing Committee of Rajya Sabha.
Therefore, on an average from each committee, out of 31 members, 14 of them were present at the meetings.
However, Chairman of Rajya Sabha Venkaiah Naidu adjourned the administration of oath to the 37 members who were elected unchallenged to the Rajya Sabha as some members who were newly appointed informed the Chairman about the restrictions and problems they were facing in their Delhi travel plans because of the Quarantine rules.
