BHUBANESWAR: The National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) project will soon be implemented in Odisha Assembly to enable it handle its diverse business smartly.Announcing this here on Tuesday, Speaker Surya Narayan Patro said starred and unstarred questions and answers will now be available in NeVA application and the legislators can apply online. The legislators will be imparted training for proper handling of the new application. “The State Government has made budgetary provisions to make the State Assembly paperless,” he said.
The Speaker also said efforts are on to make the State Assembly campus wi-fi enabled very soon. NeVA is a device neutral and member-centric application created to handle diverse house business smartly by putting entire information regarding member contact details, rules of procedure, list of business, notices, bulletins, bills, starred/unstarred questions and answers, papers laid and committee reports. Apart from legislators, the citizens will also have access to this information, he said.
The e-Vidhan is a mission mode project included in Digital India Programme. The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs (MoPA) is the nodal Ministry for its implementation in all the States and Union Territories with legislatures.The funding for e-Vidhan is provided by MoPA and technical support by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The format for paperless Assembly has already been adopted by Himachal Pradesh.
A seven-member committee of Odisha Assembly, including Patro, Leader of Opposition Pradipta Kumar Naik and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Bikram Keshari Aruka, visited Himachal Vidhan Sabha in October to learn more about the digital system that fully automates the functioning of legislative Assembly and minimises paper usage through online communication.Patro said the committee had heard a lot about e-Vidhan as Himachal Pradesh became the first state in the country to have a high-tech paperless system after its implementation in 2014.