Delhi Assembly to go paperless

In view of delay in implementation of the Centre's project for paperless legislative assemblies in the country, Delhi Vidhan Sabha has decided to implement it on it's own with financial help from the city government.

The general purposes committee (GPC) of Delhi Assembly in it's report has opined that the project, NeVA (National e-Vidhan Application), for all the Legislatures has been "badly delayed" and hence the Assembly should implement it from the funds provided by the AAP government.

The GPC report was tabled and adopted in the recently concluded budget session of the state assembly.

"The Assembly Secretariat has sought Rs 20 crore in the budget estimates of 2019-20. The project will be modified to best suit the need of the Delhi Assembly and it's members," said the report.

A Delhi Assembly Secretariat official said the government has allocated the required sum in the budget for 2019-20.

The project will involve Information and Technology department of Delhi government and National Informatics Centre (NIC), it said.

As per the report, the green governance tool 'e-Vidhan' for paperless Assembly was implemented in Himachal Pradesh with help of NIC and Union Ministry of Information Technology.

Under the project, Government of India was to provide financial assistance to the Legislatures for implementing the Himachal model.

A sub committee of the GPC had visited Himachal Assembly in October 2015 to have a first hand knowledge of the project. The GPC had approved implementation of 'e-Vidhan' in Delhi Assembly and recommended adoption of Himachal model, said the report.

A draft project report estimating a cost of Rs 17.79 crore was submitted to the Ministry of Information and Technology in October 2015. But, later the project was transferred to the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, it said.

In it's turn, the Parliamentary Affairs ministry decided to universally implement NeVA (National e-Vidhan Application) for all the Legislatures.

The ministry was of the view that once all the Legislatures have adopted 'NeVA', funds for physical infrastructure would be released in phases, said the GPC report.

The project will completely remove the need for use of paper in all the business transacted by the Parliament and state assemblies.

NeVa project was implemented in Himachal Pradesh on pilot basis.