New Delhi, April 10 (IANS): The Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Indian Parliament, has over the years "justified its existence" but the task is "far from complete", Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu said at the Rajya Sabha Day celebrations here.
Naidu, who is the ex-officio Chairman of Rajya Sabha, said that over the last six decades, men and women of "prodigious talent and calibre have adorned the benches" of the upper house and have contributed significantly towards "realising the vision of the founding fathers of the Constitution who after a lot of deliberations in the Constituent Assembly agreed to provide us a bicameral legislature".
"The Rajya Sabha, over the years, has established a credible legacy of performance and justified its existence as a second chamber of our parliamentary democracy. However, our work is far from complete," Naidu said while speaking at the event organized in the G.M.C. Balayogi Auditorium inside Parliament Library Building.
He also used the occasion to expressing his disappointment at the complete washout of the second part of the Budget session.
"It is time to wake up and look at the way forward," he said.
Naidu also appreciated the efforts of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat for organising various competitions involving children of the employees to mark the Rajya Sabha Day celebrations and congratulated all the young winners.
The Rajya Sabha was constituted for the first time on April 3, 1952.