Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Statistics and Programme Implementation, Vijay Goel presided over the Valedictory Session of the two-day National Orientation workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA), organized by Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, here today. This was the first workshop amongst a series of workshops planned by Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs for effective roll-out of NeVA.NeVA, an initiative by Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, aims to make all the Legislatures of the country paperless by making the proceedings of the Houses digital. It is an attempt to provide the information about the functioning of House to the common citizen at the click of a button. The iOS and Google app of NeVA along with the NeVA Website, will act as a repository of data related to the business of all Legislatures in the country in a uniform manner.The NeVA aims to live up-to its potential of being ‘One Nation, One Application’. This uniformity of database will lead to easy and effective engagement of citizens with the Government, which will lead to efficient delivery of services and ensure reliability, efficiency, transparency and accountability of all the stakeholders. NeVA will bring Legislatures closer to citizens, thereby taking a decisive step in achievement of substantive democracy.Once the programme is operational, details of 5,379 Members from the 40 Legislatures will be uploaded on the portal. A total of 1,13,337 questions, 25,662 notices, 1,708 Bills, 515 committee reports and 10,043 papers from the Legislatures will become available in public domain on NeVA app and website.
Addressing the gathering of over 200 delegates from 29 States and Union Territories, representing 36 legislatures across country including Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Secretariat, Shri Vijay Goel congratulated the team of Union Ministry of Parliamentary affairs for spearheading the NeVA initiative as well as the Assembly of Himachal Pradesh for taking the lead in adopting digitalization. The Minister said that cooperation from States is of utmost importance in making this step a success. He assured full cooperation from the Union Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs to the State Legislatures in this direction.Shri Goel emphasized on the need for reforms in functioning of Legislatures, including Parliament, with changing times for increasing the productivity of the Houses and efficiency of the respective members. He stressed upon the importance of imbibing suggestions from Members of Parliament and State Legislatures and make this digital initiative more lively and user friendly.Shri Goel praised the benefits of digitalization and making Legislatures paperless, yet he firmly expressed his desire that there has to be a balance between technology, consumption of information digitally and the traditional form of functioning of Legislatures. He laid stress on the importance of intellectual debates and interpersonal relations among Members of the Houses. Adoption of technology is inevitable, yet, it should not overpower the human element in the Legislatures in the country, Shri Goel added.
Addressing the gathering, CEO, NITI AAYOG, Shri Amitabh Kant noted that with the world becoming increasingly complex with overload of information, the NeVA initiative promises to ensure ease of access of important information about functioning of Legislatures in a simplified format to everyone. He encouraged the delegates from States to adopt this revolutionary tool with open arms in respective State legislatures and ensure that information regarding functioning of Houses reaches the fingertips to all citizens.Speaking on the occasion, Secretary, Parliamentary Affairs, Shri S.N. Tripathi informed that there are over 4000 applications already running in the Parliament and State Legislatures on different subjects. He said that huge volume of information is being managed by these applications, which makes accessing the relevant information instantly very difficult. NeVA is an effort to integrate this information on one platform and giving anytime anywhere access to everyone at a click of a button, he informed.Over the course of two days, a series of lectures/interactive sessions were delivered by dignitaries and experts on important features of NeVA. Technical sessions were also conducted, including a live, hands-on demonstration of the application. Session by experts from NIC explained the cloud first and mobile first architecture of NeVA application. An experience sharing session with Himachal Pradesh Assembly was also conducted where the team responsible for the implementation of the project discussed the challenges as well as the benefits of implementing the project. Through group discussions an attempt was made to answer all the queries of the participants. A consensus emerged for speedy implementation of NeVA. During the valedictory session, Shri Goel felicitated Punjab, Gujarat and Karnataka for their outstanding work in early adoption of the project.