Explained: What is the e-Vidhan system for paperless legislation?

What is the News?

A delegation of MLAs from Gujarat visited the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly to learn about the novel e-Vidhan system for paperless proceedings that has been adopted by the UP state assembly.

What is the National e-Vidhan Application(NeVA) Project?

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Which State first implemented NeVA?

Nagaland became the first state to successfully implement NeVA in March,2022.

Note: Lok Sabha Speaker has said that the proceedings of all legislatures — both Houses of Parliament and state Assemblies and Legislative Councils — will be available on one platform by 2023.

Why is NeVA being introduced?

This has been done for streamlining information related to various state assemblies and to eliminate the use of paper in day-to-day functioning which would in turn help save trees.

Has this been done elsewhere globally?

In December 2022, the Government of Dubai became the world’s first government to go 100% paperless. It announced all procedures were completely digitized

The US government announced in 2019 that by the end of 2022, all government agencies would stop dealing with paper.

What are the challenges?

The International Parliamentary Union, an organization of more than 170 parliaments including India, in a 2018 report outlined some challenges in this regard:

Firstly, access, particularly for legislators representing rural constituencies to devices and reliable internet and electricity was an issue.

Secondly, lack of training and heightened concerns over security are some more recent issues on the road to digitisation.

Source: The post is based on the article “Explained: What is the e-Vidhan system for paperless legislation?” published in Indian Express on 12th June 2022.