BENGALURU: The Legislative Assembly and Council will soon eliminate use of paper at all levels. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) has begun a study to start work towards E-Vidhaan, a project aimed at making the Assembly and Council sessions paperless.
The Union government has chosen eight states, including Karnataka, for paperless project and assigned the job to the NIC under the ‘Digital India’ initiative. According to sources from the Assembly secretariat, a Rs 64 crore proposal has been submitted to the Union government to take up the project, but the Union government decided to take the project under Digital India on it’s own.
As per information available with the authorities concerned, once the project is completed, every correspondence will be through e-mail or online. “Even the questions during Assembly or Council sessions by elected representatives will be off the paper,” said an official.
“The aim is to make every communication paperless. Even the boards and corporations of the state have to submit their reports in a digital format. The same applies to house committees as well,” the official said.
As per the information available from the assembly secretariat, the state government is spending at least Rs 100 crore in a year for correspondence and photocopying of various reports.
“If there is some report or Act which has to be presented before the house, we usually photocopy it for all the members of the Assembly and Council. Apart from that copies were also given to the department officials, CM’s office and for media. This was a huge expenditure and going digital will save money,” said an official.