Bengaluru: In 2022, Karnataka holds the honour of being the state that held the longest Assembly Session. Karnataka is now the second state in the country to allow more discussion on the budget.
The PRS Legislative Research Institute, a think-tank, has released a report on the proceedings of the various assemblies of the country, and in the year 2022, only 21 days of Assembly proceedings were held on an average across the country. But 45 days of proceedings were held in Karnataka, followed by West Bengal (42 days) and Kerala (41 days). With this, Karnataka has the pride of holding Assembly proceedings for the longest time.
The Budget in 2022 was debated for 26 days in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly. In the next position is Karnataka, which has been debated for 15 days. The report stated that Kerala (14 days) and Odisha (14 days) are at the next position. The report pointed out that the duration of Assembly proceedings is declining. In 2016, the Legislative Assemblies sat for an average of 31 days, but now it has come down to 21 days. Between 2016 and 2022, the Legislative Assemblies have been in session for an average of 25 days. It said that while Kerala is at the first position with 48 days of operation, Odisha (41 days) and Karnataka (35 days) are at the next position.
Each Assembly holds 2 or 3 sessions in a year. Of these, the budget session is the longest. Then pre-monsoon and winter sessions will be held. In 2022, two sessions were held in 12 states including 5 states of North East. On an average, 61% of the overall proceedings of the Assembly in the country is the budget session. But in Tamil Nadu, 90% of the proceedings have been conducted in the budget session itself. In Gujarat and Rajasthan, this rate is 80 percent.
Debate on the budget has been going on for a long time in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. But only 2 days of debate happened in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab. In Nagaland, the budget was passed on the day it was presented, the report said. Out of the 322 bills passed in 2022, 56% were passed the day after they were introduced. Only in Karnataka, Kerala, Meghalaya and Rajasthan did it take an average of 5 days to give assent to a bill, the report stated.