Arunachal Pradesh joins list of India’s paperless Assemblies

New Delhi: The Arunachal Pradesh Assembly joined the list of India's paperless Assemblies on Monday with the implementation of e-Vidhan, a project under the Digital India programme. Monday was a novel sight in the state Assembly as legislators were seen glued to their computer monitors provided to them in the House on the first day of the Budget Session. They took lessons from experts on the new technology introduced for the first time in the state. Speaker Pasang Dorjee Sona asked MLAs to get trained on the new software and improve their efficiency. "It is an effort to honour Mother Nature by going paperless," the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker said.

India's paperless assemblies

The first state assembly to have gone paperless in India was Himachal Pradesh. In September 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated India's first digitally-enabled Legislative Assembly building in Jharkhand at Kute gram in Ranchi. Then, Odisha went paperless in October 2019. Paperless Assembly or e-Assembly is a concept involving the use of electronic devices to facilitate House proceedings under NeVA (National e-Vidhan Application). It enables automation of the entire law-making process, tracking of decisions and documents and sharing of information. It aims to bring all the legislatures of the country on a single platform, creating a massive data depository.

The backdrop

Though the cloud technology of NeVA, data can be accessed anywhere at any time. Union Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs is the 'nodal ministry' for the implementation of e-Vidhan in all 31 states and Union Territories of India. With the implementation of e-Vidhan project, MLAs will be able to access information regarding the Assembly, see the list of business and read questions and other documents pertaining to House proceedings from any electronic device.