NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 6 Challenges to the Effective Functioning of the Legislatures — LET’S EXPLORE

Method — what to collect. Divide the work so each pair in the group takes one column, then bring the sheets together.

What a good project must contain: the raw figures with the source and date written beside each one; at least one graph (sittings per year works well); a comparison with the Parliament figures on page 158; and a short paragraph saying what you concluded and what you could not find out. Honest gaps are part of good research — note them rather than filling them with guesses.

How to arrange it. Write a short letter or email on your school’s behalf, signed by your teacher, giving your class, the purpose (a Social Science project on the working of the state legislature), the number of students coming and three possible dates. Send it to the MLA’s constituency office. Follow up politely by phone after a few days. If the MLA is unavailable, an appointment with the office staff, a former MLA or a local journalist who covers the Assembly is a perfectly good substitute — say so honestly in your report.

Questions worth asking (keep them about the institution, not about party politics — that is what makes an interview useful and keeps it fair):

• How many days did the Assembly sit last year, and is that enough time for the business before it?
• How much notice do members get of a bill before they have to debate it?
• Which committees do you serve on, and what does a committee actually do between sessions?
• What happens to a question you table — how long until you get an answer, and how detailed is it?
• What are the commonest causes of an adjournment, in your experience?
• How do constituents bring their problems to you, and which of those problems need a change in the law rather than a change in administration?
• What would you change about how the Assembly works?

Sample answer (a report you can adapt): “We met our MLA at the constituency office on a Saturday morning. She said the Assembly sat for 31 days last year, and that in her view this is too few: bills are often listed with two or three days’ notice, which leaves little time to read them properly or consult people in the constituency. She said the committee work is the part of her job the public never sees and the part where most is actually achieved, because officials answer detailed questions in writing. Her main complaint was the loss of Question Hour to adjournments — a question she had tabled about a drinking-water scheme lapsed twice before it was answered. Asked what she would change, she said: fix a minimum number of sitting days in a year, and circulate every bill at least two weeks in advance.”