Andhra Pradesh has become the first State in India to hold a paperless Cabinet meeting, setting a new trend in the power corridors of the country.
The paperless Cabinet meeting was the brainchild of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, as ahead of the meeting the progressive and technology-savvy CM had asked all the Ministers not to bring any papers or files but just come with an iPad.
At the first such e-Cabinet meeting many important decisions were taken and the performance of the Government during the first hundred days was reviewed.
Henceforth the agenda of the Cabinet, as well as the decisions taken will be accessible to the Ministers on their desktops, laptops and iPads, officials said. E-Cabinet is a self-managed file sharing system through a cloud tool, specially designed and built for the purpose and the Ministers can access it through their passwords. The system can be accessible to 30 people only.
The meeting, which went on for four hours, evoked keen interest from the Central Government as the Ministers and officials came without ream of papers, a regular feature in the past. Sources said that the Prime Minister’s Office has sought details from the Andhra Pradesh Government.
Briefing the media about the Cabinet meeting, State Minister for Information Technology Palle Raghunatha Reddy said that Andhra Pradesh has become the first State to have the e-Cabinet and paperless system in the country.
Important decisions taken by the Cabinet include allocation of 5,500 acres of land in Anantapur district to National Thermal Power Corporation to set up a 1,000 MW solar power plant at Empikunta Village.
The Cabinet noted that the power deficit had come down to 0.6 million units and measures were being taken to fill the gap by purchasing power online. While the demand stood at 132 million units, the supply was 131.4 million units.
The Cabinet also decided to extend the ban on all the left wing extremist organisations by one more year. They include CPI Maoist and its front organizations like Radical Youth, Rythu Coolie Sangham, Radical Students Union, coal miners organisation, All-India Revolutionary Students Federation.