Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Saturday said work on the new Parliament building is progressing as per the schedule and the Winter Session of Parliament this year is likely to be held in the new building. Interacting with the media persons, Birla said the new building would be a green building equipped with necessary facilities for environmental and energy conservation.
“The new Parliament building will have a seating capacity of 888 members in the Lok Sabha Chamber, and during joint sessions of both Houses, 1272 Members can be seated. The Rajya Sabha Chamber will have a seating arrangement of 384 members.
“The new building is being made techno-friendly for MPs. Members’ Desks will be equipped with a multimedia screen through which they will be able to vote in the House, register attendance and request an opportunity to speak in the House. They will be able to access the MP Portal through the touch screen available in it. Apart from this, they will also be able to access the documents uploaded earlier in their personal folders,” said Birla detailing the new Parliament building infrastructure.
Speaker said that the Parliament library will soon be available on mobile devices. The Parliament library is being digitized and for the first time, the people of the country are being allowed to use the resources of the Parliament library online. Besides, physical entry of the general public to the Parliament library will be facilitated. The library has lakhs of books on various subjects including politics, arts, science, space, and literature. Apart from this, thousands of books, biographies, and autobiographies on well-known historical figures and great leaders of modern India are also available. Birla said the process is on to launch a portal in July this year to ensure that people can read digitized books online.