National eVidhan Application (NeVA)

Context:

Recently, the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs has stated that NeVA is transforming all State Legislatures into ‘Digital Houses’ so as to enable them to transact entire Government Business on digital platforms including information exchange with the State Government Departments in digital mode.

What is National eVidhan Application?

• NeVA is 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.

National eVidhan Application: Key points

• NeVA theme: ‘One Nation – One Application’.
• It is a Mission Mode Project under the Digital India Programme for Digital Legislatures to make the functioning of all state Legislative Houses in the country paperless.
• The electronic delivery of services to its key stakeholder i.e., the Members of the State Legislatures is one of the key missions of eVidhan MMP.
• 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.
• The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, Government of India is the Nodal Department for e-Vidhan MMP.
• It envisages leveraging and utilizing the e-infrastructure namely National Cloud (Meghraj), State Wide Area Network (SWAN) / National Knowledge Network (NKN), Integrated Network Operation Centre (INOC) infrastructure for Network/Wifi management etc.
• To adopt NeVA, Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) have been signed with 18 States.
• 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, 2021 on the NeVA platform in paperless mode.
• Odisha Assembly also presented their budget 2021 in paperless mode using NeVA.
• 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.
• To adopt National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA), Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) have been signed with 18 States.

Objectives:

• Paperless Assembly or e-Assembly is a concept involving of electronic means to facilitate the work of Assembly.
• It enables automation of the 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.
• 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 facilities in respect of State Legislatures.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES OF STATE GOVERNMENTS

• 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.
• State Government/Legislature will undertake maintenance and replacement of ICT equipment after 3 years.

Source: NeVA

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Also Read: e-Governance; Citizens Charter; National e-Governance Plan