When they come to the capital for committee work, MPs get an allowance for five days--for two days before a meeting and three days after it, besides their TAs and DAs. This will add upto at least Rs 3,000 per MP, and makes it worth their while to make a trip to the capital. Given the way the members have violated their own resolution of last year to have orderly conduct business to enhance the prestige of Parliament, there is little enthusiasm this time for the closing session of the Independence celebrations. The festival of Janmashtmi falls on Saturday. It is feared that members may not make the trip to Delhi for the occasion. Hence the ploy of committees by the Secretariats of the Lok Sabha and theRajya Sabha.

The standing committees of Ministries of Communications, Railways, Food and Civil Supplies, Energy, Commerce and Transport and Tourism are meeting here on Thursday. Those of Industry, Agriculture, Commerce, Urban and Rural Development, Labour, Welfare are slated to meet on Friday. Even a meeting of a sub-committee of the Textile Ministry has been scheduled for the next two days.

The desire for adequate attendance by MPs when the President addresses them on Saturday has led to a situation when the committee on External Affairs will meet twice in 10 days. It was anyway scheduled to meet on Aug 24-26. Now another meeting has been fixed for tomorrow. Normally, the consultative committee on Foreign Affairs meets twice a year and the standing committee roughly four times.

At one time the plan was to hold a midnight function on August 14. But it was dispensed with, the argument being that the Prime Minister would have to go early to the Red Fort to address the nation from its ramparts. The closingfunction has been slated for 11.30 a m on Saturday and the President will be the star speaker. Anuradha Podwal and Pandit Jasraj will sing Sare Jehan se accha and Vande Matram,and a film on the country's achievements of the last 50 years will also be screened.