Himachal assembly winter session begins Dec 5

The eight-day winter session of the Himachal Pradesh legislative assembly will begin Dec 5 in Dharamsala town, an official said Thursday.

The session with seven sittings will end Dec 12, a government spokesperson told IANS.

This time, the number of sittings has been increased as the last session was adjourned sine die prematurely due to a stand-off between the treasury and opposition benches.

The 24-day monsoon session, which began Aug 6, was scheduled to continue till Aug 29 with 11 more sittings yet to go.

Speaker B.B.L. Butail said the Vidhan Sabha in Dharamsala has been made web-based like the assembly in Shimla.

Replies to questions, he said copies of bills and reports would be provided online.

The Rs.8.12 crore ($1.3 million) central government funded e-Vidhan project, the country's first pilot project that started in the last session, has provisions of e-voting and online communication between government functionaries, besides video conferencing, digital video recording and web streaming.

"We could annually save Rs.15 crore as both the assemblies go online," Butail told IANS.

In a recent letter to Butail, Union Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the central government would soon convene a national conference of information technology ministers and secretaries of the states to discuss the Himachal model of e-Vidhan Sabha.

Prasad has invited Butail and his team to make a presentation about the success of the project.