Working to institutionalise parliamentary friendship forums with different countries: Om Birla

Mumbai | India will soon set up friendship groups with parliaments of different countries, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said on Monday, seeking to step up parliamentary diplomacy.

The suggestion for setting up inter-parliamentary friendship groups was also made during the recent visits of multi-party delegations to world capitals in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor to convey India's resolve to root out terrorism emanating from Pakistan.

"We are working on setting up parliamentary friendship groups as such requests have been made by several countries," Birla told reporters here on the sidelines of the National Conference of Estimates Committees of Parliament and State/UT Legislative Bodies.

Seven multi-party delegations, including some led by opposition leaders such as Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, DMK leader Kanimozhi and NCP leader Supriya Sule, went to 33 world capitals.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the members of these delegations who conveyed to him the desire expressed by several countries to institutionalise the mechanism of parliamentary friendship groups.

The PM is learnt to have warmed up to the idea of institutionalising the parliamentary friendship groups as a part of parliamentary diplomacy to carry India's message on various issues to different parts of the world.

Birla said he would soon broach the topic with leaders of different political parties and devise ways to take the suggestion forward.

Addressing the conference of committees on estimates, Birla made a strong pitch for the use of technology for better functioning of such mechanisms that are aimed at bringing transparency and accountability to governance.

The conference was attended by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narwekar, Maharashtra Legislative Council Chairman Ram Shinde and Maharashtra Legislative Council Deputy Chairperson Neelam Gorhe, among others.

Birla said most of the state assemblies were using technology in a big way in their day-to-day functioning and have become paperless.

The Lok Sabha speaker said efforts should be made to ensure that the proceedings of the committee on estimates are participatory, with wide-ranging consultations with officials so that most of the recommendations made by such bodies are accepted by the government.

He said states such as Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have accepted up to 97 per cent of the recommendations made by the committee on estimates, while Himachal Pradesh lagged behind with just 15 per cent of the suggestions accepted.

The Lok Sabha speaker said he was reviving the practice of holding national conferences of parliamentary committees that were common at the national and state levels at least once in the five-year tenure of the legislative bodies.

The last national conference of the committee on estimates was held in 2002, he said.

Birla said the Lok Sabha Secretariat will also organise training sessions for members of the committees of legislative bodies to exchange best practices for better functioning of such panels.