(a) the status of implementation of National eVidhan Application (NeVA) project;
(b) whether the Government has the details regarding the first two phases of implementation of the project; and
(c) if so, the details thereof ?
(a) the status of implementation of National eVidhan Application (NeVA) project;
(b) whether the Government has the details regarding the first two phases of implementation of the project; and
(c) if so, the details thereof ?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS AND MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF WATER RESOURCES, RIVER DEVELOPMENT AND GANGA REJUVENATION
(Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal)
(a)–(c) Government of India has launched Digital India Programme with the vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society & knowledge economy. At present, Government of India has identified 44 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) for implementation under Digital India Programme. e-Vidhan is one of a such Mission Mode Project (MMP) included in Digital India Programme with the approval of Cabinet. To monitor the progress of implementation of various MMPs, Government of India constituted an Apex Committee under the Chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary. Apex Committee in its 3rd meeting held on 15th October, 2015 decided to make the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs as ‘Nodal Ministry’ for implementation of e-Vidhan MMP and empowered it to take all necessary steps to promote & roll out e-Vidhan re-designated as National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) in all the 31 States/ UTs with Legislatures on the line of Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly.
Total project cost is 738.36 Cr and funding of NeVA is on the pattern of Central Sponsored Scheme i.e. 60:40, NE & hilly States 90:10 and UTs 100%.
Apex Committee on Digital India headed by Cabinet Secretary in its third meeting held on 15/10/2015 decided to make the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs as the Nodal Ministry for e-Vidhan Project and Apex Committee on Digital India in its 4th meeting held on 16/6/2016 decided that the funding for e-Vidhan would be provided by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and technical support by MeitY. Subsequently, EFC in its meeting held on 20th February, 2018 considered e-Vidhan project for appraisal and granted in-principle approval with the direction that the Ministry may again approach EFC for final appraisal after complying its recommendations.
In order to promote the rolling out NeVA, the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs consulted all the State Governments, one of the key stakeholders and their response is encouraging. On the basis of their response, a Committee of experts under the chairmanship of JS(e-Gov), MeitY was constituted to finalize the Preliminary DPR of NeVA Project.
Paperless Assembly or e-Assembly is a concept involving of electronic means to facilitate the work of Assembly which can be regarded as the early stage of development of e-democracy. It can help Assembly to become more transparent, accessible, accountable and effective in promoting democracy. e-Assembly enables automation of entire law making process, tracking of decisions and documents, sharing of information which in turn contributes to enhancing the relationship between the governed and those who govern them.
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 member centric application created to equip them to handle diverse House Business smartly by putting entire information needed by them in their hand held devices/ tablets and equip all the Branches of Legislatures/ Department to handle it efficiently. This will create benefits in terms of the creation of an efficient, inclusive, zero emission-based database. This data once converted into valuable information will be beneficial in overhauling the way our legislatures work. It will also prove to be a powerful tool at the hands of citizens to gain access to meaningful information at tip of their fingers. This initiative will not only bring democracy closer to our citizens by bringing working of legislatures closer to them, by giving the citizens access to the bills, the question-answers, the documents tabled in the house in an easy manner, but will also provide an opportunity to the citizens for meaningful engagement with the democracy, thereby taking a strong step in direction of attaining substantive democracy. Central Project Monitoring Unit, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs will provide complete technical support in terms of hardware, software and capacity building as well as financial support. A hard working NeVA team is placed to provide all the support and to help on the momentum built.
m-NeVA will facilitate Ministers/Members get the entire House Business including replies to questions and papers to be laid in the House. CPMU, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs is also developing NeVA Ver2.0 and will be released in due course. For capacity building and training of Members and various levels of officials of House and State Government Departments, a NeVA Seva Kendra (NSK) as e-Learning Centre will be set up at each location.
This application provides all relevant information like Notices, Bulletins being issued byissued by legislatures from time to time for information of all members and other stakeholdersbesides contact details, Rules of Procedure, list of business, Starred/Unstarred Questions andAnswers, text of Bills for introduction, consideration and passing, text of all papers laid,Committee Report, Proceedings of the House, synopsis of proceedings, provisional calendarand rotation of Ministries, News and press releases and reference materials. This application alsoinformation relating to composition of all Committees including details of Committeemeetings, their agendas, information relating to personal claims of Members like Salary andAllowances etc. Live webcasting/TV facility is also available on this application live telecast of Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha TVs, Doordarshan has already been enabled with provision toincorporate similar facility in respect of State Legislatures. List of business is the most important aspect of this application, this is not an ordinary list of business giving details of business to be transacted during the day in a particular House. It is a speaking live list of business and if digital laying of all the papers is allowed and information is fed on the application by the relevant and concerned party this list of business can be created on a mere click and at once enabled documents listed in the list of business can be viewed at the source itself. For e.g. if a legislative proposal i.e. Bill is listed on a day text of that Bill will be available on the list of business itself.
The success of the implementation of NeVA lies with the States/UTs who are the key stakeholders of the project and some of the States have made good progress in the field of automation of their legislatures. In order to have a uniform, standard and systematic implementation, Secretary, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs has been imparting of training to the Nodal Officers of State Legislatures, through video conferencing. In this series , a two day workshop, for appraising the Nodal & other Officers from State Legislatures/Councils to familiarize them with the features and functionalities of the NeVA App, was held on 24thand 25th September, 2018 in BPST, main lecture room , Parliament Library Building , New Delhi. The Orientation Workshop included technical sessions and group discussions over 2 days, which facilitated exposure for the delegates about the positive attributes of NeVA. Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal presided over the Inaugural Session of the two day National Orientation workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA), organized by Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, on 24th-25th Sept, 2018. The focus of the workshop was to encourage all State Legislatures to move towards e-Vidhan platform and bring in transparency, accountability and responsiveness in their conduct of business, through the use of technology.
Himachal Pradesh is already the first completely 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.The idea behind a uniform platform, with a uniform functionality across all the legislatures is to ensure Effective and Easy Engagement with all the stakeholders in this process. This will bring much needed resources and result in modernization of working of legislatures.
NeVA is a device neutral and user-friendly app that has made information on conduct of business in Legislatures accessible anytime, anywhere to everyone. NeVA is a de-centralized standalone generic digital application designed on HP Pattern on .NET technology. It is hosted on National Cloud -Meghraj with mirroring at local Data Centre and maintenance, security and disaster recovery for all 40 Houses have been taken care of. NeVA ver1.0 can be used by 40 houses and 5300 Public Representatives. Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Sikkim, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Puducherry, Manipur Assemblies have already started using the application. Regular training through Video Conferencing is being provided by the Union Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs to all Legislatures.
NeVA mobile App will enable all MPs/MLAs to get the entire House Business including replies to questions, papers to be laid in the House, 45 minutes before the beginning of the daily proceedings whereas Hon’ble Speaker will get the entire House Business as and when available. Hon’ble Ministers who have to reply to the House, can seek supplementary replies on their mobiles from the Administrative Secretaries.
Inside the House NeVA will support a digital eBook format accessible through member’s login. NeVA-mobile app will make its contents accessible even without a touch-screen devise installed in the House through mobile and tablets. GoI will support NeVA through NIC and hardware, facilitation centres and capacity building of 20-30 manpower for 36 months for all 40 Houses. Funding under this scheme will be based on Centrally Sponsored Scheme pattern. Stand-alone version customised for each house, hosted on Cloud server, training Literature and User Manual for same has been put in place. States may start keying data for last Session.
NeVA Ver2.0 is being developed by CPMU, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and will be released in due course. Model DPR Format, Checklists, MoU & Guidelines have been finalised. Dash Board –monitor @40VMs with NeVA software (application and DBMS) 37 VMs for 37 State Assemblies & Councils, 2 VMs for LS/RS and ONE for R&D purpose is ready.
In order to provide assistance to the Members, a NeVA Kendra (e-Facilitation Center) will be setup at each location under the Nodal Officer. For Computer training program for Members of the States/UTs Legislature and various levels of officials of Legislative Assembly / Council Secretariat and other State Government Departments, a NeVA Seva Kendra (NSK) as e-Learning Centre will be set up at each location. The backend computerization of all the branches of the States/UTs Legislature Secretariats in order to ensure electronic flow and delivery of information / data to the Members of the States/UTs Legislatures and to interact with various State Government Departments will be ensured under NeVACapacity building and Orientation Programme for the Members of the State Legislatures, officials of the respective States Legislatures Secretariats and other officials of the State Government Departments through NeVA Seva Kendra (NSK) in all the States/UTs.
The e-Vidhan project aims to develop a generic NeVA application on both android and IOS platform. The database hence designed will be shared by different Legislatures. A NeVA Technical Committee will be formed which will recommend the Hardware (H/w)/, Software(S/w), Cloud Infrastructure, tools and technologies. Digital Legislatures will be created. There will be Installation of Touch Screen / Tablet devices in the Legislatures. One Tablet Device will be provided to each Member of the Legislature. ICT Infrastructure will be provided in all the branches of State Legislatures. A robust Network Infrastructure facility with backup for high speed LAN/WAN network and secured WIFI network will be set-up. Necessary Hardware/access devices will be deployed in the House(s) of Legislature for electronic delivery of Services.
Automation will be done in two phases. While in phase-I Digital Legislatures, Daily Business Papers, Preparation of Verbatim, Submission and processing of Questions and Notices of all types, Laying of all the papers and reports in electronic form, Computerization of Question Branch, Table Office, Legislative, Editorial and Synopsis Branch, Bills Management System, Committees Management System, Assurances Management System, Member’s portal, Members’ Amenities and Web-casting will be covered. Phase – II will cover Digital Archives, Library Automation, Procurement and Store and any other improvement.
Funds for NeVA implementation in State Legislature(s) under e-Vidhan MMP will be provided as per the Centrally Sponsored Schemes pattern i.e. 90:10 for North Eastern and Hilly State, 60:40 for all other States and 100% for Union Territories having Legislature. 1st instalment (up to 20% of the sanctioned project cost) will be released only after the approval of DPR by the Technical and Financial Evaluation Committees at Central Level subject to budgetary provision of State’s share. 2nd instalment (upto 40%) will be released after Receipt of Utilization Certificate of 1st instalment amount alongwith expenditure of matching contribution of State Government. 3rd instalment (upto 20%) will be released after the receipt of utilization certificate of 2nd instalment amount alongwith expenditure of matching contribution of State Government. Fourth and Final instalment will be released on Project Completion Certificate and Financial Audit by competent authority.
All the State Legislatures would prepare Detailed Project Report (DPR) and the GAP Analysis Report. DPR shall be scrutinized by IT Department / State Government in all respects including with reference to State share, support for manpower, operation and maintenance and redundancy management etc. Approval of DPR and implementation of the Project would be undertaken by State level NeVA Implementation Committee with recommendation for funding by MoPA, GOI.DPR duly recommended by the state government will be received by Ministry of Parliament Affairs. This DPR will undergo Technical Scrutiny by NIC and Financial Appraisal by Financial Advisor of MoPA. The Memorandum for approval of DPR of each House will be placed before Empowered Committee of NeVA for sanction along with the report of technical scrutiny and financial appraisal.
MOPA, Govt. of India shall release the funds to the Secretary (IT) of the respective state for NeVA implementation. IT Department shall transfer the fund to the Executing Authority, NeVA along with matching share. The State government may release advance money for early implementation of the project which can be reimbursed as per sanction of MoPA, Government of India. Program Management Units (PMUs) are to be set up at the Central Level and each State Legislature Levels to enable implementation of the project in a time bound manner.
E-learning/Facilitation Centres will be established to provide training to all the Members of the State Legislature, officials of the State Legislature Secretariat and Officials of State Government Departments. The state-of-the-art e-Learning Centers will have all modern computer-based teaching aids as well as Video-conferencing facility for remote learning. It is proposed to setup a Mock State e-Legislature at Parliament Complex under the control of (BPST). It will arrange training courses on NeVA for the Members/Officials of all the State Legislatures and State Government Departments. It will showcase the NeVA to the International Delegates visiting Indian Parliament. BPST shall arrange and organize Training Courses at State Legislature Locations also.
The NeVA Project is subject to Audit by competent authority of State / Central Government. The NeVA will be supported for a period of 36 months after the date of Trial Run. All efforts will be made to complete the Project in the defined Time Line. After a period of 3 years, NeVA will be owned by the State Legislatures. Government of India shall only bear the cost of the CPMU and Cloud Hosting Services of NIC. It shall be responsibility of MOPA to resolve any dispute arising out of implementation of NeVA including guidelines and instructions issued from time to time.
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 Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, Government of India, Government of State and State Legislatures .As per the MoU Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, will provide funds for e-Vidhan implementation in state legislature(s) under e-Vidhan MMP in the following manner:
(i) For Northeastern & Hilly States funding will be in the ratio of 90:10.
(ii) For Union Territories having legislatures funding will be in the ratio of 100:0.
(iii) For Other States funding will be in the ratio of 60:40
Funds will be used for developing a generic, configurable e-Vidhan product deployed on national cloud (Meghraj), procurement of hardware, software, manpower for smooth implementation in state legislatures.
State will prepare detailed project report (DPR), 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, Govt. of India for approval. After the technical and financial scrutiny, funds will be released for project implementation funds will be released in three instalments as per terms and conditions for release of funds. After the project completion, a project completion report needs to be submitted along with the utilization certificate of the final instalment.
The CPMU will be responsible for reviewing the financial and technical progress of the project, assessment of the progress of work and to advice the project execution team will be responsible for new directions / approach and ensure its smoother progress and link-up with the work going on elsewhere in any other state legislature in the countryfor full utilization of the capabilities available. CPMU will examine specific request from State Legislature regarding changes in sanctions and to make recommendations thereon for consideration by the empowered committee. CPMU will ensure advance action regarding completion of the project, establishment of facilities, its utilization and transfer of know how etc. for successful replication. CPMU will review the deliverables of the agencies involved and will amend the deliverables of required keeping in view the project objective. CPMU will recommend release of fund to implementing agency on the request of SPMUs.
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). e-Vidhan MMP is required to be implemented in their state legislature(s) and shall provide the funds as per state’s contribution. State Government will borne the funds required for running of e-Vidhan MMP after 3 years. For scrutiny of DPR a state level a committee will be formed which will be headed by the Chief Secretary/Additional Secretary (IT) or any authorized officer of the state Government. For smooth implementation of e-Vidhan MMP in the state legislature necessary guidelines to be followed by all State Government departments will be issued by the state government. The State Government will ensure capacity building for the effective implementation of e-Vidhan MMP module for electronic exchange of information between state government departments to the state legislature(s). The State Government shall carry out the financial audits of grants released by the statutory audit of the State Government and a certificate to this effect will be sent to MoPA annually.
Amendments, if any required in acts, rules, and regulations for implementation of e-Vidhan in State Legislature will be carried out by the State Government/State Legislature. Maintenance and replacement of ICT equipment’s on taking over the project after 3 years will be taken up by state government/state legislature. 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.
The key highlights of the NeVA application is listed as follows –
Effective Management of Legislation:- To provide the database for this application, authentic data was collected on priority basis from all the Legislatures. Once obtained, a detailed matrix was designed to store this information which can now be accessed in terms of sections such as Notice, Bulletin, Rules, List of Businesses, Bills, Paper Laid, Committee Reports, House Proceedings, Press Releases, and Budgets etc. Being a Member centric application, it has enabled a secure platform wherein each member of the house can submit questions and other notices as well. With the plethora of data available, NeVA combines the most relevant information across the Houses, provides a one-point destination and drives the mantra of “One Nation, One Application”.
Electronic Delivery of Services to Hon’ble Members:- NeVA provides a strong backbone structure to the inner working management of the Legislature. The Members of Legislature are provided a platform wherein they can navigate through processes of Notices, Bulletins, review the List of Business and accordingly set up their agendas to be discussed in the Legislatures. It provides multi-fold avenues through which the Members can remain informed and also helps in creating a repository of information which may have gone amiss in a paper-centric environment.
Faster Working Environment:- The introduction of NeVA also helps in empowering the Members using it, by providing content on request. It 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; the flexibility and availability of information remains NeVA’s biggest virtue.
User Friendly:- Every citizen is bound by the laws governing their particular country. But never was it possible before, that the inner workings of the Houses/Legislatures were decentralized to the grass root level of the general public. With the introduction of NeVA – any individual can access the issues circumventing the day-to-day workings of the various Houses, and get a gist of the government’s functioning. It promotes transparency, accountability and awareness which remain strong foundations on which a democracy can prosper. Additionally, the interface of the application is extremely user-friendly which can be navigated easily through any individual. There is easy access, no login credential requirement, hence enabling a swift platform for one and all.
To further strengthen the project, two day training workshops are also being conducted at various state assemblies to train and familiarise the officials of their secretariats, NIC as well as the Nodal officers of various departments with this application. So far, such successful trainings have taken place at 10 such states viz. Punjab, Telangana, Karnataka, Sikkim, Bihar, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Kolkata.
The project has finally been accorded the approval of the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs. The Ministry is obtaining the final appraisal and approval of the project by EFC.
Further details are available on NeVA website. http://neva.gov.in/