Ishtiyaq Ahmad
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Feb 13: As the budget session ended on Monday, the I-pads given to legislators have remained unused.
The Information Technology had distributed I-pads to MLAs, MLCs, administrative secretaries and other concerned officers to view and download the answers of the questions in a digital format in the budget session.
An official of IT Department, said that Speaker JK Legislative Assembly Kavindar Gupta was informed before the session that the IT Department was ready with question answer management system of the software.
However, government failed to start the e-Assembly assembly session. The legislators could not use I-pads in absence of e-Assembly in one month long Assembly session, which ended on Monday.
"I-pads are no use for us without e-Assembly. They could be used in the assembly only when e-Assembly is implemented here," a legislator, said.
Official documents reveal that e-Assembly project could not be started in the session due to "technical problem",.
Giving reasons about delay in implementation of the project, the government in documents said that "main software for the project was imported from Rajastan (e-assembly). "The customization of the software for inclusion of legislative council module took time, as Rajastan assembly is unicameral whereas JK legislative assembly is bicameral," the documents say.
"There were some technical problems as a result of which the main software could not integrate the workflow of the houses in the software," the documents read.
An official said that IT Department had submitted the proposal to Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances for automation of Assembly houses in JK.
"Upon examination of the e-Assembly project, a committee advised that while designing the system, the state should study the system in place in Rajasthan Assembly. After which main software was imported from Rajasthan assembly," he said
The e-Assembly project was sanctioned in the year 2014 at the cost of over Rs 3.5 crore.
The project consists of various components like web software applications, mobile application, WI-FI, set up in J&K legislative assembly and council, hardware like smart tabs, scanners, digital signatures an UTM (firewall).
The project aimed at making the process chain of the assembly and council related to sessions online, thereby reducing the dependence on paper and speeding up the process.
IT Minister Imran Raza Ansari had said that e-Assembly project for Jammu and Kashmir has been envisaged for "end to end computerization of the Assembly processes so that paper work can be reduced, time is saved and Assembly members can put their questions in online format and complete digitization of Assembly can be done."
Box: The I Pads given to legislators remained unused during the just concluded budget session. |
