NEW DELHI: Protecting the environment and tackling climate change are pressing issues, but do our parliamentarians really care? Not much, if one were to go by the volume of questions they asked on climate change during the last budget session—just 1%.
Discussions on the environment in Parliament, too, were inadequate. Less than 4% of the questions answered were related to the environment in the last budget session.
The insights came from a new report on parliamentary proceedings on environmental matters, The Green Hour, which analysed the budget session (January-April) 2023. This is the second edition of the report. The first edition analysed Parliament’s winter session in 2022.
Compiled by the think tank ‘Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy’, the report said the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change answered a total of 399 questions during the budget session—205 in the Lok Sabha and 194 in the Rajya Sabha. In all, the government responded to 10,371 questions (6,000 in Lok Sabha and 4,371 in Rajya Sabha) during the budget session.
Members of Parliament (MPs) from some states were more aware of environmental issues than others. MPs from Maharashtra asked the highest number of questions, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and West Bengal.
However, Uttar Pradesh represents 14.2% of the country’s population but asked only 17% of the questions, whereas states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala did much better on that metric. Maharashtra, with 8.6% representation in the population, contributed 19% of the questions, followed by Andhra Pradesh, with 4.7% representation, contributing 12% of the questions, while Kerala with only 4% representation, asked 10% of the questions.
The issue of air quality was the most common topic. Most questions were related to the functioning of various institutions like pollution control boards, afforestation, Forest Survey of India, environmental management, ecosystem conservation, climate change, species habitats, landscape of special importance, environmental permissions, developmental activities, protected landscapes and forest regulations.
The budget session also discussed issues related to the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023; and the report of the Joint Committee on the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
Besides, 14% of interventions in the Lok Sabha and 1.5% in the Rajya Sabha were on environment-related issues like compensation to farmers for crop failure due to climatic reasons, construction of canals/ dams, water, etc. As for Zero Hour notices, eight out of 133 in the Lok Sabha and two of 30 in the Rajya Sabha were on environmental issues.