Around 30% members had full presence in a session of Rajya Sabha. (FILE)
Seventy-eight percent of Rajya Sabha members attended the proceedings of the House daily, a study conducted by the House Secretariat showed. The analysis of attendance of the MPs in the Parliament's Upper House revealed that AIADMK member SR Balasubramaniam is the most regular Rajya Sabha member.
The 75-year-old MP participated in the proceedings of all the 138 sittings of these 7 sessions, according to the study.
Around 30 percent members had full presence in a session and only less than two per cent had zero attendance, it revealed.
Five of the members -- Ashok Bajpai, DP Vats, Neeraj Shekhar, Vikas Mahatme and Ramkumar Verma -- fully attended six sessions, while seven members -- Rakesh Sinha, Sudhanshu Trivedi, Dr Kailash Soni, Naresh Gujral, Vishambar Prasad Nishad, Kumar Ketkar and Amee Yagnik -- had full attendance for five sessions.
The first-ever quantitative analysis of the extent of participation of Members of Parliament in the house proceedings was undertaken after Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu sought to know the pattern of attendance.
With the ministers, Deputy Chairman, Leader of the House and Leader of the Opposition not required to sign the attendance register, about 225 Members marked their attendance daily as required under the Members of Parliament (Salary and Allowances) Act, the analysis showed.
The highest daily attendance of 82.57 per cent was reported during the 254th Session (last monsoon session), while a low of 72.88 per cent was recorded during the preceding one, it showed.
During this period, 29.14 per cent reported full attendance while only 1.90 per cent never attended the proceedings for various reasons and were granted leave of absence by the House.
The analysis further revealed that the pandemic did not impact the attendance during the last three sessions. During the 252nd session, the first to be held following COVID-19 protocol, 99 members, accounting for 44.19 per cent of the total, attended the proceedings during all the ten sittings, while 98 members, accounting for 46 per cent, did so during the 17 sittings of 254th Session.