NEW DELHI: The Delhi Assembly has decided to go paperless with financial help from the city government, in view of a delay in implementation of the Centre’s project for paperless legislative assemblies
“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 its members,” says the report of the General Purposes Committee (GPC) of the Assembly.
The report was adopted in the recently concluded budget session of the Assembly.
The report says that the Centre’s project, NeVA (National e-Vidhan Application), for Legislatures has been “badly delayed” and so the Assembly should implement it using funds provided by the Aam Aadmi Party government.
A Delhi Assembly Secretariat official said the government has allocated the required sum in the budget for 2019-20.
The project will involve the Information and Technology department of the Delhi government and National Informatics Centre (NIC).
The report says the green governance tool ‘e-Vidhan’ for a paperless Assembly has been implemented in Himachal Pradesh with the help of NIC and the Union Ministry of Information Technology.
Under the project, the Centre provides financial assistance to state legislatures for implementing the Himachal Pradesh model.
A subcommittee of the GPC had visited Himachal Assembly in October 2015 to have first-hand knowledge of the project. The GPC approved implementation of ‘e-Vidhan’ in the Delhi Assembly and recommended adoption of the Himachal model, said the report.
A draft project report estimating a cost of Rs17.79 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.
But the parliamentary affairs ministry decided to implement NeVA (National e-Vidhan Application) in all legislatures.
The e-project will remove the need for use of reams of paper in the business transacted by Parliament and the state Assemblies.