18th All India Whips Conference to start from Jan 8

Deliberations on paperless parliament and state legislatures by rolling out e-Sansad and e-Vidhan are on the agenda of 18th All India Whips Conference to be held in Udaipur next week.
Union Parliamentary Affairs minister Ananth Kumar is slated to inaugurate the conference to be held on January 8 and 9. It will be attended by whips of various political parties from different states.
According to an official, e-Sansad and e-Vidhan are mission mode projects under Digital India to make the functioning of Parliament and state Legislatures paperless.
Another agenda would be efficient functioning of legislatures while the states and Union territories will give action-taken report on recommendation of the 16th and 17th whips' conferences held in Goa and Visakhapatnam respectively.

According to the agenda of the programme, e-Vidhan would make the functioning of state legislatures paperless, transparent, productive and more accountable to the public and economise the entire Legislative process.
The whips' conference makes a number of recommendations for smooth and efficient working of Parliament and the state legislatures in the light of the experience gained by the whips. The recommendations are forwarded to chief ministers and ministers of parliamentary affairs in states by the Union ministry of parliamentary affairs.
A 'whip' is a member of a political party's parliamentary body responsible for discipline within the party. Their main job is ensuring that their members in Parliament and legislature vote in line with the party's official policy on important issues.