Punjab Assembly awarded first prize for NeVA project

The Punjab Vidhan Sabha (PVS) has awarded first prize for entering data in the National eVidhan Application (NeVA) portal in a very short time.

Facts :

• Two days Workshop on National eVidhan Application (NeVA) was organized by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs at Parliament Library Building, New Delhi.
• This was the first workshop amongst a series of workshops planned by Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs for effective roll-out of NeVA.
• The workshop was inaugurated and presided over by Mr. Arjun Ram Meghwal and Mr. Vijay Goel, Union Ministers of State for Parliamentary Affairs along with Mr. Amitabh Kant, CEO of the NITI Aayog and Mr. S.N. Tripathi, Secretary, Parliamentary Affairs.
• This workshop was attended by senior officers from the Secretariat of Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, NIC, 31 Legislative Assemblies and 7 Legislative Councils from across the country. It was described how the digitization, availability and applicability of information could save precious time, energy and resources of the Houses and its members and thus increase their efficiency manifold.
• Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, being the Nodal Ministry for this project, desires to roll out e-Vidhan as NeVA covering all 40 Houses with 5374 Members including two Houses of Parliament and thereby putting all of them on a single platform and thereby proving the theory of ‘One Nation One Application’.
• During workshop the Secretary of PVS also presented a report of the works done by the Punjab Vidhan Sabha related to digitization of Punjab Vidhan Sabha Debates right from 1937 till date, compendium of Who's Who of Members, Compendium of Acts and Rules and Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha which can be viewed at www.punjabassembly.nic.in.
• Smt. Shashi Lakhanpal Mishra, Secretary, Punjab Vidhan Sabha received the award in New Delhi.

Analysis :

• This application will lead to faster communication and decision making.
• This App is user friendly and easy to use not only by the Members but even by a layman.
  NeVA website is available at http://164.100.140.201/ and NeVA mobile App is available at Play Store and App store for Android and iOS mobiles respectively.
• Rana K.P. Singh, Speaker, Punjab Vidhan Sabha has already shown a keen interest in computerisation and digitization of Punjab Vidhan Sabha and has desired to go ahead with NeVA project at the earliest so as to facilitate the Members of Punjab Vidhan Sabha and public at large with whole information available in their hands.
• A Committee for Computerisation and Digitization of Punjab Vidhan Sabha is already working under the Chairmanship of the Speaker and the implementation of these projects is under active consideration of the Committee.
• During Conference It was described how the digitization, availability and applicability of information could save precious time, energy and resources of the Houses and its members and thus increase their efficiency manifold.

National eVidhan Application (NeVA) portal :

• NeVA, an initiative by Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, aims to make all the Legislatures of the country paperless by making the proceedings of the Houses digital. It is an attempt to provide the information about the functioning of House to the common citizen at the click of a button. The iOS and Google app of NeVA along with the NeVA Website, will act as a repository of data related to the business of all Legislatures in the country in a uniform manner.
• The NeVA aims to live up-to its potential of being ‘One Nation, One Application’. This uniformity of database will lead to easy and effective engagement of citizens with the Government, which will lead to efficient delivery of services and ensure reliability, efficiency, transparency and accountability of all the stakeholders. NeVA will bring Legislatures closer to citizens, thereby taking a decisive step in achievement of substantive democracy.
• There are over 4000 applications already running in the Parliament and State Legislatures on different subjects. The huge volume of information is being managed by these applications, which makes accessing the relevant information instantly very difficult. NeVA is an effort to integrate this information on one platform and giving anytime anywhere access to everyone at a click of a button.

e-Vidhan Project:

• e-Vidhan is a Mission Mode Project to digitize and make the functioning of State Legislatures paperless.
• This is part of Digital India programme. It is to be used by the Legislatures as well as all the Government Departments.
   

By: Harman Sandhu