Do Department -related Parliamentary Standing Committees keep the administration on its toes and inspire reverence for parliamentary control? Evaluate the working of such committees with suitable examples.

Design that can keep officials on their toes

• Twenty-four DRSCs cover clusters of ministries; members from both Houses sit off-camera, which allows cross-party questioning that the floor, under a whip, will not.
• They examine Demands for Grants, selected bills, and long-term policy, and they summon secretaries — a civil servant’s most regular taste of Parliament outside a PAC hearing.
• Consensus reports, rather than division, are the culture; a ministry that is embarrassed in a unanimous report feels a professional sting even if the party numbers on the floor are safe.
• The committee secretariat and CAG-fed numbers give amateurs in the House a briefing they would not get in a shouting Question Hour.

Examples of working

• The Standing Committee on Finance has repeatedly gone into tax administration, GST architecture, and financial-sector bills, forcing the Department of Revenue to justify circulars in writing.
• The Committee on Defence has questioned capital acquisition delays and research outcomes, which is parliamentary control in a sector that prefers secrecy.
• Health and family-welfare committees have reported on drug regulation, COVID preparedness, and Ayushman-type coverage gaps, putting the Health ministry on a published clock.
• IT, communications, and home committees have examined data, telecom, and internal-security Demands, sometimes producing the only accessible public record of a technical bill.
• When the government refers a major bill — Insolvency, labour codes, or a data-protection draft in various years — the committee stage has extracted concessions; when it skips referral, the toes stay comfortable.

Limits on ‘reverence’

• Referral of bills is not automatic; an executive in a hurry bypasses the committee, which teaches the administration that Parliament is optional.
• Attendance, party research capacity, and the chair’s proximity to the ruling party vary; a captured chair does not inspire reverence.
• Reports are recommendatory; ministries file Action Taken notes that can be formulaic. Unlike a confidence vote, a DRSC cannot sack a minister.
• Secrecy of proceedings helps candour but hides the spectacle that creates public reverence; citizens see disruption on television, not a clerk sweating over a grant.

Evaluation

• On the toes: yes, for budget grants, for officials who must file replies, and for bills that actually go to committee — a real, under-advertised form of control.
• Reverence: only partly. The administration still treats the floor majority as the true master and the committee as a delay to be managed.
• Recommendation: default referral of all non-money bills, a published deadline for Action Taken, and a short floor debate on each major DRSC report, so control is seen as well as filed.