Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal presided over the Inaugural Session of the two-dayNational Orientation workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA), organized by Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, here today. On the occasion, Shri Meghwal also launched the new website of the NeVA and administered the Swachhata Pledge to over 200delelgates, which included senior officers from Secretariats of Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, 31 Legislative Assemblies and 7 Legislative Councils from across the country.The Orientation Workshop would include technical sessions and group discussions over 2 days, which would facilitate exposure for the delegates about the positive attributes of NeVA; deliberations on issues faced by different State Legislatures in implementation of e-Vidhan and finding solutions thereof. The focus of the workshop would be to encourage all State Legislatures to move towards e-Vidhan platform and bring in transparency, accountability and responsiveness in their conduct of business, through the use of technology.Addressing the delegates in the inaugural session, Shri Meghwal said that information regarding the functioning of the Houses should be available in real time, in a format that is user friendly and increases its applicability for the member.He described instances from his Parliamentary experiences how the digitization, availability and applicability of information could save precious time, energy and resources of the Houses and its members and increase their efficiency manifold. This digital intervention is a big step to increase transparency, accountability and decreases the scope of corruption in the functioning of House, the Minister added.
Shri S.N. Tripathi, Secretary (Parliamentary Affairs), informed that NeVA is a member-centric,decentralised digital application thatmakes information available on digital platform about day to day functioning of Legislative Houses covering, among other areas, List of Business (LOB), Notices, Bulletin-1, Bulletin-2, Starred/ Unstarred Questions including reply by the Departments (Q&A), Bills: Introduced/ Consideration & Passing, Synopsis of Proceedings, House Proceedings-Verbatim, Committees Reports, Rules & Procedures, Digital Library, Provisional Calendar, Reference material, Rotation of Ministries,Contacts, BudgetPress Releases etc. The application would host a secure page for each Member of the House for submitting Questions & other Notices.The mNeVA(NeVA-mobile app) is a device neutral anduser friendly app thathas made information on conduct of business in Legislatures accessible anytime, anywhere to everyone. It is a work-flow based app deployed in Cloud (Meghraj) which helps the Chair of the House to conduct the proceedings of the House smoothly and the members to carry out their duties in the House efficiently.NeVA-mobile App is available for download from Play store and App store for Android and iOS mobiles respectively. NeVA has made live for Rajya Sabha in respect of Monsoon Session 2018 and information in respect of Lok Sabha is being updated. Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Sikkim, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Puducherry, Manipur Assemblies have already started using the application. Regular training through Video Conferencing are being provided by the Union Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs to all the Houses. Dignitaries present during the inaugural session included Smt. Neeta Verma, DG, NIC and other senior officers of the Ministry.
BACKGROUND
e-Vidhan is a Mission Mode Project to digitize and make the functioning of State Legislatures paperless. This is part of Digital India programme andMinistry of Parliamentary Affairs,being the Nodal Ministry for thisproject, desires to roll out e-Vidhan as NeVAcovering all 40 Houses including two Houses of Parliament and thereby putting all them on a single platformand proving the theory of ‘One Nation One Application’.NeVA is a Rs.739 Crore (approx.) project for bringing Legislatures on digital platform,covering all Houses. It is to be used by the Legislatures as well as all the Government Departments. This journey began with a pilot project executed in Himachal Pradesh with the central assistance of Rs.8.12 crores which made the Shimla Legislative Assembly the first Assembly in India to go paperless in 2014. This project resulted into overall savings of about Rs.5.08 crores annually on account of expenditure on papers, printing, manpower costs and conservation of forests/ trees as ancillary benefits.