Parliamentary Committees of India

The Parliamentary committees are formed to handle the large volume of legislative work referred to the Parliament. These committees are formed to investigate and study-specific matters related to their field of expertise.

What is the Parliamentary Committees?

• The Parliamentary committees are categorized into two types based on their purpose and duration – namely Adhoc and Standing committees (Advisory and Enquiry).?
• An Ad-hoc committee is formed for a specific purpose and they cease to exist when the purpose is accomplished.
• On the contrary, a Standing committee is permanent and has work regularly assigned to it in both the houses.
• On the basis of the composition- they are either comprised of Select committees (which comprise of members of only a single house) and Joint Committees (which comprise of members of both houses).

?What are the standing committees?

• For scrutiny of bills and important legislations, there are 24 specific department-related Standing Committees whose primary task is to initiate wider stakeholder consultations on bills referred to them.
• Rajya Sabha has 8 committees while the Lok Sabha has 16.
• Each standing committee comprises of 31 members out of which 10 are drawn from the Rajya Sabha while the remaining 21 come from the Lok Sabha.

Why is this in the news?

BJP, which is also the national party, currently in power, has failed to submit the list of nominees for the formation of the various Parliamentary Committees before the end of the August 14 deadline set by the Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice-President of India, Shri Venkaiah Naidu.