25-May-2023: Two-day National workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) concludes
The second day of the two-days National Workshop commenced with presentations from representatives of top tech companies informing the delegates about the developments in the field of emerging technologies for enabling good governance representing Microsoft, IBM and Google Inc, for making National e- Vidhan Application (NeVA) more accessible, discoverable, insightful by use of Generative Artificial Intelligence models. Shri Gudey Srinivas, IAS, Secretary, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs urged to those states who are already on-boarded NeVA, to keep pace with the emerging technologies to provide good governance.
This was followed by presentation by technical team about the 17 modules of NeVA which have already been implemented. Thereafter, the House was opened for Question & Answer session to resolve any doubts and issues arising out of implementation of the NeVA project in which delegates participated enthusiastically. Secretary, MoPA and Additional Secretary, MoPA replied to all points raised.
Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Law and Justice; Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Culture, Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal presided over the Valedictory Session of the two-day National Workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA).
Shri Gudey Srinivas, IAS, Secretary, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs briefed the distinguished gathering about the scope and possibilities of use of emerging technologies in NeVA. Endeavors may be made to convert texts to voice in all recognized Languages for maximum outreach and connect to the public at large.
Shri Rajit Punhani, IAS, Secretary of Rajya Sabha Secretariat and CEO of Sansad TV congratulated the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and the participating states for this two-day insightful session. It will strengthen the archival and retrieval system of parliamentary proceedings.
Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma, Secretary, MeitY also addressed the Workshop and informed that NeVA is a visionary project of Government of India and Digital Initiatives of the Government has transformed the society into a Digital one. Today Data is cheaper thereby, India is creating digital minds, and it is third largest ecosystem of Artificial Intelligence. India is the Chairperson of a group of 27 Countries of AI.
Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Law and Justice and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Culture, in his valedictory speech, said that with Judiciary and Executive has already embraced digital technology, the Legislatures should not be left behind but should embrace it to keep up with the changing times. This digitization would curb corruption and strengthen democracy. He assured full cooperation from the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs to the State Legislatures in this direction.
In the two-days National Workshop on NeVA which concluded today, all the 31 States and Union Territories were represented through 161 delegates. 21 Legislatures have signed MoUs and projects of 17 Legislatures have been sanctioned and funds released. Out of them, 9 Legislatures have already gone LIVE on the NeVA platform. The participating delegates experienced NeVA first hand and some of them promised to initiate steps to onboard the NeVA on priority basis.
24-May-2023: National e-Vidhan Application is a testament to commitment of Govt. leveraging latest technological advancements for public good: Shri Piyush Goyal
Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal said that parliamentary democracy is the cornerstone of India’s development and India‘s future. While attending the National Workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) as Chief Guest, the Minister said that NeVA is a testament to the commitment of the Government to leverage the latest technological advancements for public good.
The Minister said that institutions across the country need to be strengthened and transparency has to be promoted in the institutions and NeVA is a project of empowerment for our public representatives. Shri Goyal said that NeVA can empower the legislators with information and knowledge not only about their respective legislature but the developments in other legislatures; he said that this cross-flow of information through NeVA will lead to knowledge sharing and adoption of best practices across states.
Shri Goyal reiterated that the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi had enunciated the Panch Pran emphasizing that work must be done with a sense of duty to achieve a developed India for our future generations and the youth must be involved in this road to development. He said that the Prime Minister visualised the digital future for the country and said that this goal can be achieved only if everyone works together with a mindset of duty towards it. Shri Piyush Goyal said that NeVA has been evolved in furtherance of the spirit of this sense of duty.
The Minister said that NeVA is an integrated and interconnected national portal showcasing ‘One Nation, One Application’. Shri Goyal said that it benefits one and all and not just the legislators. He also said that NeVA is apolitical and beyond politics.
The Minister said that NeVA will truly revolutionise India’s democracy and the functioning of legislatures and Parliament of India. The Minister added that NeVA will effectively reduce the carbon footprint and inefficiency due to use of paper for legislature work. Shri Goyal said that NeVA showcases the principle of ‘One Nation, One Technological Backbone’ connecting all the legislators to work collectively for the development of the nation.
Shri Piyush Goyal urged that all must collectively work to make NeVA a grand success. He said that efficient Information Technology (IT) functioning leads to effective delivery of Service to the public and NeVA provides an opportunity to serve better. During his address, he cited the examples of UPI, digital payment system, startup ecosystem, CoWIN app, One Nation One Ration Card, Open Network for Digital Commerce, Government e-Marketplace, etc. and said that the whole world is appreciating these technological advancements by India which are making the lives of people better.
Shri Piyush Goyal praised the Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines, Shri Pralhad Joshi and said that through NeVA, he has given us all an offer that we cannot refuse. Shri Goyal also congratulated the team that developed NeVA and the states that have been onboarded and also encouraged the remaining states to come on NeVA.
25-May-2023: Two-day National workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) concludes
The second day of the two-days National Workshop commenced with presentations from representatives of top tech companies informing the delegates about the developments in the field of emerging technologies for enabling good governance representing Microsoft, IBM and Google Inc, for making National e- Vidhan Application (NeVA) more accessible, discoverable, insightful by use of Generative Artificial Intelligence models. Shri Gudey Srinivas, IAS, Secretary, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs urged to those states who are already on-boarded NeVA, to keep pace with the emerging technologies to provide good governance.
This was followed by presentation by technical team about the 17 modules of NeVA which have already been implemented. Thereafter, the House was opened for Question & Answer session to resolve any doubts and issues arising out of implementation of the NeVA project in which delegates participated enthusiastically. Secretary, MoPA and Additional Secretary, MoPA replied to all points raised.
Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Law and Justice; Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Culture, Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal presided over the Valedictory Session of the two-day National Workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA).
Shri Gudey Srinivas, IAS, Secretary, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs briefed the distinguished gathering about the scope and possibilities of use of emerging technologies in NeVA. Endeavors may be made to convert texts to voice in all recognized Languages for maximum outreach and connect to the public at large.
Shri Rajit Punhani, IAS, Secretary of Rajya Sabha Secretariat and CEO of Sansad TV congratulated the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and the participating states for this two-day insightful session. It will strengthen the archival and retrieval system of parliamentary proceedings.
Shri Alkesh Kumar Sharma, Secretary, MeitY also addressed the Workshop and informed that NeVA is a visionary project of Government of India and Digital Initiatives of the Government has transformed the society into a Digital one. Today Data is cheaper thereby, India is creating digital minds, and it is third largest ecosystem of Artificial Intelligence. India is the Chairperson of a group of 27 Countries of AI.
Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Law and Justice and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Culture, in his valedictory speech, said that with Judiciary and Executive has already embraced digital technology, the Legislatures should not be left behind but should embrace it to keep up with the changing times. This digitization would curb corruption and strengthen democracy. He assured full cooperation from the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs to the State Legislatures in this direction.
In the two-days National Workshop on NeVA which concluded today, all the 31 States and Union Territories were represented through 161 delegates. 21 Legislatures have signed MoUs and projects of 17 Legislatures have been sanctioned and funds released. Out of them, 9 Legislatures have already gone LIVE on the NeVA platform. The participating delegates experienced NeVA first hand and some of them promised to initiate steps to onboard the NeVA on priority basis.
24-May-2023: National e-Vidhan Application is a testament to commitment of Govt. leveraging latest technological advancements for public good: Shri Piyush Goyal
Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal said that parliamentary democracy is the cornerstone of India’s development and India‘s future. While attending the National Workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) as Chief Guest, the Minister said that NeVA is a testament to the commitment of the Government to leverage the latest technological advancements for public good.
The Minister said that institutions across the country need to be strengthened and transparency has to be promoted in the institutions and NeVA is a project of empowerment for our public representatives. Shri Goyal said that NeVA can empower the legislators with information and knowledge not only about their respective legislature but the developments in other legislatures; he said that this cross-flow of information through NeVA will lead to knowledge sharing and adoption of best practices across states.
Shri Goyal reiterated that the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi had enunciated the Panch Pran emphasizing that work must be done with a sense of duty to achieve a developed India for our future generations and the youth must be involved in this road to development. He said that the Prime Minister visualised the digital future for the country and said that this goal can be achieved only if everyone works together with a mindset of duty towards it. Shri Piyush Goyal said that NeVA has been evolved in furtherance of the spirit of this sense of duty.
The Minister said that NeVA is an integrated and interconnected national portal showcasing ‘One Nation, One Application’. Shri Goyal said that it benefits one and all and not just the legislators. He also said that NeVA is apolitical and beyond politics.
The Minister said that NeVA will truly revolutionise India’s democracy and the functioning of legislatures and Parliament of India. The Minister added that NeVA will effectively reduce the carbon footprint and inefficiency due to use of paper for legislature work. Shri Goyal said that NeVA showcases the principle of ‘One Nation, One Technological Backbone’ connecting all the legislators to work collectively for the development of the nation.
Shri Piyush Goyal urged that all must collectively work to make NeVA a grand success. He said that efficient Information Technology (IT) functioning leads to effective delivery of Service to the public and NeVA provides an opportunity to serve better. During his address, he cited the examples of UPI, digital payment system, startup ecosystem, CoWIN app, One Nation One Ration Card, Open Network for Digital Commerce, Government e-Marketplace, etc. and said that the whole world is appreciating these technological advancements by India which are making the lives of people better.
Shri Piyush Goyal praised the Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines, Shri Pralhad Joshi and said that through NeVA, he has given us all an offer that we cannot refuse. Shri Goyal also congratulated the team that developed NeVA and the states that have been onboarded and also encouraged the remaining states to come on NeVA.
16-Mar-2022: “National eVidhan Application (NeVA)”
“National eVidhan Application (NeVA)”, a Mission Mode Project for Digital Legislatures to make the functioning of all Legislative Houses in the country paperless has been developed on the theme of ‘One Nation – One Application’. NeVA is transforming all State Legislatures into ‘DIGITAL HOUSES’ so as to enable them to transact entire Government Business on digital platform including information exchange with the State Government Departments in digital mode. It stands for bringing far reaching transformation in the governance across the country by making the people well informed & enlighten citizens and thereby strengthening the roots of the democracy in the country. NeVA is not only bringing greater synergy, coordination, transparency and accountability between the Legislature and the executive in a State, but also across the States. Keeping in view the latest technological development in the field of ICT, maximum use of AI& IOT has been made to make NeVA a robust IT product.
Since, the process involving the functioning of all Legislatures are similar except some minor variations, enabling provisions have been incorporated in NeVA for onboarding it by the two Houses of Parliament also.
To adopt National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA), Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) have been signed with 18 States viz(1) Punjab (2)Odisha, (3) Bihar {both Houses}, (4) Meghalaya, (5) Mizoram, (6)Manipur, (7) Gujarat, (8) Arunachal Pradesh, (9) Nagaland, (10) Puducherry, (11) Tripura, (12)Himachal Pradesh, (13) Chhattisgarh, (14)Tamil Nadu, (15)Sikkim, (16)Haryana, (17) Uttar Pradesh{both Houses} (18) Jharkhand.
Out of these 18, Detailed Project Reports have been submitted by13 States viz.(1) Punjab (2) Odisha, (3) Bihar {both Houses}, (4) Nagaland, (5) Manipur, (6) Sikkim, (7) Tamil Nadu, (8) Meghalaya, (9)Haryana,(10)Tripura (11) Uttar Pradesh (both Houses)(12) Mizoram, (13) Arunachal Pradesh for sanction of funds. All but last one (Arunachal Pradesh) have been sanctioned necessary funds as per the requirement of respective Legislature for implementation of the Project. All these Legislatures have also begun the procurement of various devices as per their requirement following the respective procurement procedure & General Financial Rules/ Regulations/ guidelines without any interference by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs.
As a special achievement, Bihar Legislative Council became the first House in the country to transit to NeVA platform completely on 25th Nov, 2021 and conducted Winter Session, 2021on the NeVA platform in paperless mode. They will also be conducting the ensuing Budget Session, 2022 on the NeVA platform. Odisha Assembly also presented their budget 2021 in paperless mode using NeVA. Other Houses are also adopting the same path and during next few months with the completion of procurement of IT devices and installation of necessary infrastructure in and around the Houses, noticeable changes would be visible in the functioning of all State Legislatures.
Keeping in view the federal structure and autonomy of the State/UT Legislatures, all are being encouraged to adopt NeVA.
NeVA is a Unicode compliant software having provision for easy access to various documents like List of Questions, List of Business, Reports etc. bilingually viz. English and any regional language. This application is spearheading the principle of ‘One Nation- One Application’ with the objective of Cloud First and Mobile First to serve Members’ FIRST.
Technical & financial provisions have been made under NeVA for creating digital archives of entire legacy data and making it available to users including Members and citizens in easy to search mode through mobile App and website as well.
16-May-2019: Kerala Assembly to digitise all records, to save Rs 35 crore annually
The Kerala state Legislative Assembly will go completely paperless with the state government undertaking an initiative to digitise all records. This is expected to save around `35 crore to `49 crore annually and time as the state has been spending around 40 crore for taking tonnes of paper printouts. The first phase of the project is expected to be completed in 14 months.
The state has awarded the work to the Uralungal Labour Contract Cooperative Society and it has started working on the ambitious project called E-Vidhan to enable the state legislature to go completely paperless. The project is expected to cost around 40 crore. Though the first phase can be executed in the stipulated time, it would take around two years to completely go paperless for all the departments connected to the Assembly.
Once the project is completed, all the Assembly proceedings like submission of notice by a member, question and answers, and all the other correspondence and business concerning the Assembly will go paperless.
The Assembly handles hundreds of various committee reports, Bills, notices, and various other reports which demands massive paperwork. So this project will completely get rid of paper in all the business transacted by the Assembly. Besides, the functioning of various departments linked to the Assembly and library will also be made paperless as part of the project.
Though the state has sought Central aid to execute the project earlier, the project is now being executed by the state-owned fund.
E-Vidhan will ensure all the state legislatures to go paperless. The state has been spending around 40 crore for taking tonnes of paper printouts. The first phase of the project is expected to be completed in 14 months.
18-Dec-2018: National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) Project
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal, while giving a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha, gave details on the status of implementation of National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) Project. Paperless Assembly or e-Assembly is a concept involving of electronic means to facilitate the work of Assembly. It enables automation of entire law making process, tracking of decisions and documents, sharing of information. NeVA aims to bring all the legislatures of the country together, in one platform thereby creating a massive data depository without having the complexity of multiple applications.
NeVA is a device neutral and member centric application created to equip them to handle diverse House Business smartly by putting entire information regarding member contact details, rules of procedure, list of business, notices, bulletins, bills, starred/unstarred questions and answers, papers laid, committee reports etc. in their hand held devices/ tablets and equip all Legislatures/ Departments to handle it efficiently. Citizens would also gain access to this information at their fingertips.
NeVA will completely eliminate the process of sending out a notice/request for collection of data. Through the cloud technology (Meghraj), data deployed can be accessed anywhere at any time. Further, live webcasting of Lok Sabha TV and Rajya Sabha TVs is also available on this application. Doordarshan has already been enabled with provision to incorporate similar facility in respect of State Legislatures.
e-Vidhan is a Mission Mode Project (MMP) included in Digital India Programme and Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs (MoPA) is the ‘Nodal Ministry’ for its implementation in all the 31 States/ UTs with Legislatures. The total project cost of the project is over 738 crores and funding of NeVA is on the pattern of Central Sponsored Scheme i.e. 60:40; and 90:10 for North East & hilly States and 100% for UTs. The funding for e-Vidhan is provided by the MoPA and technical support by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). In order to promote the rolling out NeVA, the MoPA has consulted all State Governments.
The Minister said that the success of the implementation of NeVA lies with the States/UTs, the key stakeholders of the project. MoPA organized a two-day workshop on 24th and 25th September, 2018 at New Delhi, to familiarize officers from State Legislatures/Councils with the features and functionalities of NeVA. MoPA is providing regular training through Video Conferencing to all Legislatures. So far, such successful trainings have taken place at 10 such States viz. Punjab, Telangana, Karnataka, Sikkim, Bihar, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Kolkata. In order to provide assistance to the Members, a NeVA Kendra (e-Facilitation Center) will be setup at each location under a Nodal Officer. Himachal Pradesh is already the first Digital Legislature of the country. Other states like Punjab, Madhya Pradesh & Sikkim are also in various stages of transformation and their initiatives are highly commendable.
For implementation of e-Vidhan MMP for achieving paperless state legislature and electronic information services delivery to legislators and other stakeholders, tripartite memorandum of understanding will be signed among MoPA, Government of India, Government of State and State Legislatures, the Minister said.
Shri Meghwal stated that the Central Project Monitoring Unit (CPMU) under MoPA will be responsible for reviewing the financial and technical progress of the project. The State will prepare detailed project report (DPR) and gap analysis report. State level project monitoring committee will carry out the technical scrutiny and financial scrutiny of the DPR and after final approval of the same will be send to the MoPA for approval. After the technical and financial scrutiny, funds will be released for project implementation.
The State Government will appoint a Secretary level officer to be designated as the nodal officer/representative for e-Vidhan implementation in the State Legislature(s). State Government will bear the funds required for running of e-Vidhan MMP after 3 years. The State Government will ensure capacity building for the effective implementation of e-Vidhan MMP module. State Government/Legislature will undertake maintenance and replacement of ICT equipment after 3 years. Release of next instalment would not be made in case the utilization certificate and confirmation of release of funds by the state government of their share is not received by the CPMU.
