Avinash Azad
Early Times Report
Jammu, Jan 3: The much hyped e-Assembly project, to make both of houses of legislators paperless, has turned redundant as nationwide e-Vidhan project will replace it. However, the members of lower house had questioned futile investment of over Rs 3.5 crores during last budget session of PDP-BJP Government in 2018.
According to sources several components mentioned in e-Assembly project remained a mystery. "The project sanctioned in 2014, comprised of Web Software Application, Mobile Application, Wi-Fi Setup in J&K Legislative Assembly/Council, Hardware like Smart tabs, Scanner, Digital Signatures and UTM (Firewall)", sources said and added still most of components are only available in paper form.
They said that the despite spending sanctioned amount the purpose of the project could not be achieved. "The total project cost of e-Assembly was Rs 3.57 crores, out of which Rs 2.58 were released in favour of state by the Central Government under DARPG and Rs 97lacs was released by the state government for the purpose", they said and added that despite all these things e-Office or Paperless office could be materialized here.
They said that e-Vidhan was a mission mode project to digitize and make the functioning of State Legislatures in India paperless. "It is a part of the broader Digital India Programme of the Government and is likely to contribute to the cleanliness and environment by reducing the use of papers to a great extent", they said.
Sources said that the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs was the Nodal Ministry for the project. "It is taking all the necessary steps for rolling out the Project in all the States at an early date. One of the key component of the strategy devised for implementation of the project is to create Project Monitoring Units both at Central as well as State levels", they added.
Secretary Information Technology Department, Saugat Biswas when contacted said that the project has been completed. "NIC is working on basic office process (e-office), but in the meantime, Government of India, launched e-Vidhan, and we have to onboard on e-Vidhan, it is major initiative of Central Government toward paperless Office", he said and added that the Law Department was working on e-Vidhan.
Secretary Law Department, who is also Nodal Officer for e-Vidhan, Achal Sethi said, "I have called several meetings to shift on e-Vidhan, and soon we (J&K) will be part of it." |
