Dear Readers,
I didn’t begin this story with a number in mind.
It was the Monsoon Session of 2025. Like most political reporters, I was watching the Parliament do what it has increasingly become known for — meet, and then not really work.
That session was scheduled for 20 sittings. By the end of it, the Lok Sabha had functioned for barely a third of its allotted time. Entire days were lost to adjournments. Question Hour disappeared repeatedly. Bills were passed anyway.
I remember one afternoon in particular. The House assembled, slogans followed, the Speaker adjourned proceedings. MPs filed out. And I caught myself thinking: This is not just political theatre. This is expensive.
The question that wouldn’t go away
As journalists, we’re trained to track power — who disrupts Parliament, who benefits from chaos, who controls the narrative.
But sitting through that 2025 session, I realised, the question that needed to be asked was: What does this dysfunction actually cost the public?
The answer: Rs 3,300 crore were lost to Parliamentary disruptions between 2014-2024.
You can read the full report to find out how I arrived at this figure.
Rs 3,300 Crore Wasted in 10 Years: The Price of India’s Dysfunctional Parliament
Inside the reporting process
This investigation began with spreadsheets.
For weeks, I worked with official records from the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs (MPA), which logs how much time Parliament schedules each session, and how much of that time is officially lost to disruptions.
I scraped the data going back to 1952. I cleaned it. I checked it again. Hour by hour. Minute by minute. Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, year after year.
Then came the uncomfortable part: putting a price on dysfunction.
There’s a figure that appears repeatedly in parliamentary debates and reporting — Rs 2.5 lakh per minute — the approximate cost of Parliament being in session, accounting for infrastructure, staffing, security, logistics, and MPs’ allowances.
It’s a conservative estimate. But it’s one Parliament itself routinely uses.
So I took only what the government officially records as “time lost”. I converted those hours into minutes. And I did the math.
When the numbers came together
The result stopped me in my tracks.
Between 2014 and 2024, the estimated cost of parliamentary disruptions crosses Rs 3,300 crore.
That money wasn’t spent on debate.
It wasn’t spent on scrutiny.
It wasn’t spent on holding the executive accountable.
It was spent on adjournments.
Some years stood out — 2018, 2023, and now 2025 — but what disturbed me most was the pattern. This wasn’t an aberration. This was routine.
What this story is really about
As I dug deeper, it became clear that this story isn’t only about disruptions. It’s also about how little Parliament meets, and how fast it passes laws when it does.
Sitting days have declined steadily. Question Hour has been hollowed out. Committees are bypassed. Landmark decisions, from the farm laws to Article 370, were rushed through with limited debate.
Governments often counter criticism with claims of high “productivity”. But productivity, I realised, can be misleading. Bills can be passed quickly even when democratic scrutiny is weakened.
The Parliament’s functioning in 2025 made this contradiction impossible to ignore: two-thirds of the Monsoon Session was lost, yet nearly the entire Union Budget was passed without discussion in the Budget Session.
On paper, Parliament worked.
In practice, democracy didn’t.
Why we thought this story mattered
Rs 3,300 crore is a staggering figure. But this story isn’t really about the money.
It’s about what we are being asked to accept as normal: a Parliament that meets less, debates less, disrupts more, and still exercises enormous power over citizens’ lives.
And every time Parliament fails to function, the public pays — quietly, invisibly, without consent.
Stories like this one don’t come from press releases or studio debates. They come from weeks of data work, verification, and asking questions that those in power would rather not answer. If you’ve found value in this reporting then I need your support to keep doing this work. Become a Quint member* because now it isn’t just about paying for journalism, it’s about protecting it.
That’s all from me for now. Hopefully, I’ll be in your inbox again soon with another story. Meanwhile, you can also follow my work on X and Instagram.
Thanks,
HIMANSHI DAHIYA
Special Correspondent
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