L Murugan, Minister of State (MoS) for Parliamentary Affairs informed the Rajya Sabha on Monday, July 22nd, 2024 that as many as 913 assurances were promised by the Members of Parliament (MPs) during the three previous calendar years, out of which 583 were completed and the remaining 330 were still not implemented.
“The ones that are yet to be implemented, could not be fulfilled due to the need for change in policies and amendments. An assurance must be met within a period of three months from the date of announcement. Extensions were sought for those that were not completed,” the minister stated.
Murugan, the MoS, Parliamentary Affairs also gave a breakdown of the total number of assurances made by MPs in the previous nine sessions of Parliament, across the three years (three sessions per year).
Nevertheless, requests for extensions from the assurance committee were made since some of the assurances could not be implemented on schedule. There were 120 assurances made in total during the 253rd session of Parliament. A total of 105 assurances were made in the 254th session, 25 in the 255th, 221 in the 256th, 70 in the 257th, 95 in the 258th, 118 in the 259th, 99 in the 260th session, 0 in the 261th extraordinary session, and 60 in the 262nd session.
In response to inquiries from YSRCP member Ryaga Krishnaiah, Murugan stated that all Ministries have been issued an ID and password for the Online Assurance Monitoring System (OAMS), a software developed by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs. Users are able to submit implemented reports, request drops, and ask for extensions for fulfilment of Assurances on this portal which also contains necessary instructions regarding timely implementation of Assurances.
“They (ministries) can upload Implemented Reports, make requests of dropping, and see extensions for fulfilment of assurances on this portal which also contains necessary instructions regarding timely implementation of assurances,” Murugan noted.
“The (Parliamentary Affairs) Ministry keeps reminding all the ministries/departments, from time to time, regarding expeditious completion of the pending assurances. Auto-generated reminders are also sent every month to the concerned ministries/departments through this system," he added.
The Ministry periodically reminds the other Ministries and Departments of the importance of promptly fulfilling any outstanding assurances from ministers and higher-ranking officials. In addition, this system automatically generates reminders that are delivered to the relevant Ministries/Departments on a monthly basis.
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