The Delhi Assembly has sought help from the state government for turning paperless after the delay in the implementation of the Centre's project for paperless Assemblies.
During the budget session of the Assembly, which concluded last week, the General Purposes Committee (GPC) of the Delhi Vidhan Sabha had tabled a report stating the paperless project was "badly delayed".
"The Assembly Secretariat sought Rs 20 crore in the budget estimates for 2019-20. The project will be modified to suit the needs of the Assembly and it's members," said the report.
The government has allocated the amount for the purpose.
"A lot of papers are used in the Assembly. Our aim is to make it paperless by the next session. The work will start from April and the implementation will take around six months," Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel told IANS.
"It will take a little time, as we need to first develop a centralised system. There will be a display screen on MLAs' seats. Everything, from questions and answers to reports, will be available on the touch of finger," he said.
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Goel said the study and the estimate part of the project has been completed and with the sanctioning of the money, the work will also begin next month.
"A team from the Assembly visited the Himachal Pradesh Assembly in 2015 after it turned paperless to get first hand knowledge. They (Himachal Assembly) also have nearly the same number of MLAs as we do," he said.
For turning paperless, the Delhi Assembly will work with the Information and Technology Department of the state government as well as the National Informatics Centre (NIC), the GPC report said.
The GPC had approved the implementation of 'e-Vidhan' in the Assembly and recommended adoption of the Himachal model.
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, the report said.
On its part, the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry had decided to implement the National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) project in all state Assemblies.
The Ministry was of the view once all Assemblies adopted NeVA, funds for the physical infrastructure would be released in phases, said the GPC report.
(Nivedita Singh can be contacted at nivedita.singh@ians.in)
--IANS
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