Farmers Movement Archive

RS audio feed hit during farm Bill debate: CPWD

The Central Public Works Department (CPWD) has clarified that the audio feed in Parliament was disrupted for nearly 20 minutes when the three contentious agriculture Bills were debated in the Rajya Sabha on September 20 during the monsoon session. The three Bills were passed amid din, with the entire Opposition up on its feet. Eight members were suspended following the pandemonium in the Upper House. The members also sat on a night-long dharna. Response to RTI The CPWD put out the clarification in a tweet on Sunday. It provided the information in an answer to an RTI application. “CPWD, which maintains the facility, clarifies that the feed was disrupted between 13:05 Hrs to 13:35 Hrs on 20 Sept, 2020 due to the damages caused to the microphones (mics) at the Chairman’s seat by some of the Hon’ble MPs,” it tweeted. It laid the blame on Opposition members, some of whom pulled out the microphone at the Chairman’s table. At that time, Deputy Chairman Harivansh was in the chair. “As directed by the chair, no other MIC was ON at that very time except that of Hon’ble Chairman. So when these MICS were broken, there was no audio output from the system to RSTV. It took nearly half an hour to restore this after following necessary protocols,” it said in another tweet. The disruption of the audio feed of the Rajya Sabha TV also meant that many of those sitting in the Lok Sabha chamber as part of COVID-19 protocol could not hear the proceedings or participate in the debate. .

The Hindu

2020-12-01

New Delhi