It's raining adjournments! Parliament's Monsoon Session bleeds Rs 25.28 crore at Rs 2.5 lakh a minute

Parliament

The stormy scenes in the ongoing session of Parliament may have made headlines, but there has been no legislative business so far. While major Bills — such as the Manipur Goods and Services Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2025, Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2025, Indian Institutes of Management (Amendment) Bill, 2025, and the National Sports Governance Bill, 2025, among others — are lined up for discussion, frequent adjournments have stalled any progress.

This brings us back to the oft-quoted cost of such disruptions. In 2012, the then Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal had stated that the cost of running a Parliament session stood at Rs 2.5 lakh per minute.

Here’s a caveat: since that statement in 2012, the figure has continued to be cited in discussions about the functioning of Parliament, but no official revision has been made.

Here in 2025, factoring in inflation and rising administrative costs, the actual cost is likely to be significantly higher. However, in the absence of an updated estimate, most media outlets continue to use the 2012 figure in their calculations.

Recently, the non-profit PRS Legislative Research published data on the number of parliamentary hours lost due to disruptions. Previously, former Lok Sabha Secretary General PDT Achary had also told Financial Express that the cost of running Parliament is Rs 2.5 lakh per minute, with the proceedings of each House costing Rs 1.25 lakh per minute.

An NDTV report used that data to estimate the financial cost of the current Monsoon Session. Here's how it adds up:

• The Monsoon Session of Parliament has had three working days so far, with each House — Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha — expected to function for 6 hours per day:
• 3 days × 6 hours = 18 hours, or 1,080 minutes per House
• Due to repeated adjournments:
• Rajya Sabha worked for only 4.4 hours (or 264 minutes), losing 816 minutes
• Lok Sabha worked for just 0.9 hours (or 54 minutes) in the first three days, losing 1,026 minutes
• Now, add today’s lost 180 minutes (till 2 pm) in Lok Sabha to the total:
• New total lost time for Lok Sabha = 1,026 + 180 = 1,206 minutes
• Using the cost estimate from PRS Legislative Research that each lost minute costs Rs 1.25 lakh, the taxpayer has now lost:
• Rajya Sabha: 816 × Rs 1.25 lakh = Rs 10.2 crore
• Lok Sabha: 1,206 × Rs 1.25 lakh = Rs 15.08 crore
• New total cost of disruptions so far: Rs 10.2 crore + Rs 15.08 crore = Rs 25.28 crore