Doing away with papers and saving on administrative costs for running the house, the Himachal Vidhan Sabha in its 50th year is ready to go online for the Monsoon Session with establishing of e-Vidhan network.
Speaker Brij Bihari Butail on Friday announced completion of the computerisation of the entire Vidhan Sabha procedures and processes, enabling all services to be integrated online that would be real time tested during the upcoming Monsoon Session.
“The Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha is fully hi-tech now,” declared Butail after having inspected E-Vidhan network flow.
It would be the first Vidhan Sabha in the country where the House would be supported by online services.
During the inspection Butail, who turns 73 in July, asked both the technical team that installed the network and the Vidhan Sabha secretariat to remain alert while operating the e-Vidhan services so that there were no hiccups during the house sittings.
To educate the Ministers, legislators and the officers with the online processes and procedures of the new system, training session are being conducted.
Where Cabinet Minister Dhani Ram Shandil, MlAs Govind Ram & Col Inder Singh sat through a training session on Thursday, the speaker introduced the new system to MlAs Asha Kumari, Ravi Thakur, Ajay Mahajan and Suresh Kumar on Friday. Separate trainings for Government officers and employees were also being conducted.
Part of a Go-Green effort, the project has developed a role enabled work flow and web based application software for automated working of legislative assembly, committees and members. Digital signature certificates (DSC) would be used for user authentication and only digitially signed document after converting to PDF/A standard would be uploaded on the online system. Provision for an SMS/Email alert system for generating reminders / information automatically has been built into the program.
The software interface for Vidhan Sabha secretariat includes question processing system, issuing of notice to departments, reply by departments, digitisation & publishing of verbatim record of house / committee proceedings, legislative assembly bills, publishing of budget, control over budget and scrutiny over Government finances by legislative assembly, press and media information systems, generation of identity cards/passes, publishing of bulletins, HR, procurement and stock inventory, diary & dispatch and library information system.
Having taken personal interest in the project, the speaker had sought central assistance for implementing of the Rs7.75 crore e-Vidhan Project.
“Having implemented the project would reduce the use of paper and improve carbon ratings of the institution,” said Butail.