Himachal becomes first state with a hi-tech Assembly

The e-Vidhan system will make the proceedings and processes a lot more efficient while reducing cost and making the house paperless

Himachal Pradesh became India’s first state to have a hi-tech Legislative Assembly with e-Vidhan, a secure end-to-end solution that will make the proceedings and processes a lot more efficient while reducing cost and making the house paperless.
    
SBL, a Kochi-based IT company is the mastermind behind the project. The company had earlier digitised the entire proceedings of Kerala Legislative Assembly since 1888.

The e-Vidhan system  fully automates the day-to-day functioning of the entire legislative assembly and will radically change how the legislation process works in India in the near future.  From this monsoon session, e-Vidhan system will maintain online records of all the Assembly’s proceedings of Himachal Pradesh Assembly.

 

While announcing the launch of the groundbreaking e-Governance solution Himachal Pradesh Speaker Brij Behari Lal Butail said that the Assembly Session proceedings will be completely paperless and introducing bills and laying various reports and answers to questions inside the House will be handled through touch-screen based computer systems deployed for each legislative member inside the House. With e-Vidhan system, the members inside the House will be able to exercise their voting over motions electronically. Similarly, the information provided for media persons too will be digitised and a media room with computers using the e-Vidhan system will be available for the use of media persons. He also added that the e-Vidhan system will use Digital Signature Certificates (DSC) for user authentication; henceforth only digitally signed documents converted into PDF/A standards would be allowed to be uploaded on the online system. This will ensure error free, paperless communications within the legislative house.

e-Vidhan’s Secretariat interface will manage the Questions Processing System by accepting the questions from members, issuing notices to departments, accepting replies from departments, approving the answers and fixing the dates by the Secretariat and finally creating list of Business for the day during the Assembly session.

The new system increases the people participation in the legislation process by automating the process of Assembly Bills and allowing to seek people’s suggestions on bills online through a secure web interface. The system also ensures that the proceedings inside the House will be instantly available for the public at the end of every session by digitising and publishing verbatim record of house/committee Proceedings.

e-Vidhan system utilises the latest technologies of SMS and e-mail gateways to alert the users regarding work at hand.

The system for MLAs would include an enhanced Constituency Management System including submitting priority list of works under MLAs' Local Area Development [LAD] Fund, monitoring various works running in the constituency, redressing of public grievances/demands, management of employee’s requests (transfers etc.), party information system, and preparing tours/ appointments/meetings, online submission of questions & property returns by MLAs, online annual/ supplementary budget books etc.

Under this system, the citizens and employees will be able to submit their grievances, demands and requests to MLAs online. Online submission of suggestions on bills and for entry passes during sessions will also be managed through this new portal. It is worth noting that significant administrative costs for running the house have been saved by implementing the e-Vidhan system.

Governor Urmila Singh, Chief minister Virbhadra Singh and MLAs applauded the efforts of  this adoption of the new paperless technology.

The e-Vidhan project was developed as a joint venture between the Himachal Pradesh State Legislative Assembly, National Informatics Centre Services Incorporated (NICSI) and the Government of Himachal Pradesh which was sanctioned by Department of Electronics & Information Technology of India.

NICSI selected SBL as associatepPartner for the project development and implementation of the entire system, based on the track record in implementing similar projects in government and public sectors including, Kerala Legislative Assembly. With a reputation for intelligent, efficient and highly-organized development and project management skills, SBL’s technology division has successfully developed and implemented the entire e-Vidhan system within the guidelines of NICSI and is proud to be part of the first ever hi-tech legislative house in India.

SBL has  presence across the globe including USA, UK, Australia and West Asia. The company, which was founded in 2005 in Kollam presently employs 800 people with its main work base in Infopark, Kochi.