Assurances are made by the government on the floor of the Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha during the course of debates, answering questions etc. Here is a review of the status of the assurances made during the last (16th) and the current (17th) Lok Sabha. The business conducted on the floor of both the houses of parliament is a key aspect of our democracy. Parliamentary proceedings include introduction and discussion on various bills, debates on important public issues, questions raised by the members of parliament and the responses provided by the government etc. While responding to the questions asked in the house and during debates, the government on various occasions makes assurances, undertakings, promises to consider, take action or furnish information on a later date. Such responses by the Government are termed as Assurances in parliamentary parlance. To ensure that these assurances are implemented within a reasonable timeframe, both the Lok Sabha & the Rajya Sabha have constituted – ‘Committee on Government Assurances’. Factly has earlier written a story on the status of Assurances made in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. This information was based on the data provided by the respective committees on Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha websites as on 26June 2019. One year on, we take a look at the current status of these assurances along with the new assurances made in the subsequent sessions of Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha. Even for this story, we rely on the information provided in the websites of Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha. 50 New assurances added for 16th Lok Sabha after the expiry of term. As per the information provided on Lok Sabha’s website, the total number of assurances during 16 Lok Sabha are 5,385. This is 50 more than number of assurances as of 26 June 2019. This implies that the Lok Sabha’s Committee on Government Assurances has added these 50 assurances after the dissolution of 16 Lok Sabha in May’2019. The assurances made in the Lok Sabha do not lapse even after the dissolution or expiry of the term in Lok Sabha. The work of the committee is of a continuous nature and hence a review of the assurances made earlier also fall under the ambit of the committee. Hence, if the committee feels that there needs to be a review or addition of new assurances from earlier Lok Sabha, they could do so. Analysis of the data shows that the revision was made to the numbers of assurances across multiple ministries. An example is of the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, where-in an additional assurance is added over the past one year, taking the total number of assurances under this Ministry in 16 Lok Sabha to 4, from 3 a year ago. A majority of the assurances were added from the 17 Session i.e. the last session of previous Lok Sabha, with 42 additions . Pendency of assurances for 16th Lok Sabha fell by around 9% in the last one year As per the information available on the Lok Sabha’s website, as on 26 June 2019, pendency of assurances made in 16 Lok Sabha was nearly 33%. As on that date 3,447 assurances were marked as ‘Fully Implemented’ out of 5,335 assurances with 1,754 pending. As highlighted earlier, the assurances do not lapse after the expiry of the term. The Lok Sabha Secretariat and the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs pursue these assurances. Hence, as per the latest information as on 15 July 2020, the number of pending assurances fell to 1,283 i.e. nearly 24%. Further 3,928 assurances from the 16 Lok Sabha were fully implemented i.e. 481 additional assurances fully implemented compared to the situation a year ago. Apart from the fully implemented assurances, another contributor towards the reduction in pending assurances are the ‘Dropped’ assurances. As indicated in the chart, the number of dropped assurances have increased to 146 from 91 over a year ago. The Working guidelines of the committee provide for an Assurance to be dropped, in case the government feels that it is not feasible to implement the assurance and the Committee also agrees with the facts presented by the government. One such example is a ‘Dropped’ assurance by Ministry of External Affairs on 04 December 2019. The assurance identified by the Committee was relating to a question asked in Lok Sabha raised on 27December, 2017. The Minister of State for External Affairs, provided an update for one of the specific questions, stating that the proposals to open Cultural Centres in certain cities are being processed. This was considered as an assurance by the Committee but dropped on a later date. The reasons for dropping were not furnished except that it was dropped at the sitting held on 04 December 2019.