With the launch of digital platform Uttar Pradesh has joined a select group of state legislatures of the country where the records of the debates inside House would be available with the click of the mouse.
The digital platform was inaugurated by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in the presence of Assembly Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey, several state ministers and law makers here on Monday.
Persistent Systems with SemanticBits have developed a ‘ Multilingual Intelligent Search Solution’ for gaining insight into the legislative proceedings of the House. All elected members and public will have 24x7 access to accurate information in the form of text, audio and video from the past proceedings.
Presently, such system has been launched in Kerala and Himachal Pradesh, but in UP the system is the latest one.
Chief Minister in his address said that this is a unique system through which people can monitor the activities of their representatives. “This system would increase transparency in government working and technology will act as a watchdog,” he said adding that the Samajwadi Party government has always promoted technology. We have given funds for the digitization of the files of the Allahabad High Court.
The CM further said he would be shifting to his new office which also has better and modern technology.” We are certain that our government will continue to sit in the new secretariat to be inaugurated soon,” he said.
On the occasion Yadav said media should change its attitude towards government and give a right perspective of the political and development scenario of the state.
State Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mohammad Azam Khan said that this system would prevent law makers from double speak as they say something to their voters and change their views in the House.
Principal Secretary (Assembly) Pradeep Dubey said that it was a stupendous task “but we are proud to have it in UP Assembly because it is the latest technology available in the market.”.
He said in the first phase digitization have been done for the past 25 years, while in the second phase it is done up to 1952.
Dr Anand Deshpande, Founder and CEO of Persistent Systems said that this system will bring transparency in government working as well as in debates. “Every word members or ministers utter now will be available on the website,” he said.