Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Assembly has now joined the league of a few Indian states which have adopted e-Assembly system, an initiative of the Union government to digitally transform the functioning of the state assemblies.
Facilities of wi-fi, computers, laptops, ipads and others have been given to the Assembly staffers as well as to the legislators. All of them have also been imparted training on use of digital technology in official works.
With the digitisation of the House, Odisha has become among the three Indian states which have worked towards this. Himachal Pradesh and Punjab have already adopted the practice. Assembly Speaker SN Patro told the media that the training as well as infrastructure has been created for the employees and the MLAs.
He said, “The works which have been done in our Assembly include facilities like wi-fi, SWAN, LAN, videoconferencing. Every assembly employee has been provided with computer system and all legislators have been given funds to buy computer/laptop. All of them have already bought them.”
He also said that trainings for the same have also started. “The Union government is happy with our progress. Funding between Centre and state for the same has been in the ratio of 60:40,” he added.
The Assembly has also created two different video conferencing halls. “All the employees who were working with pen and paper have now been trained to work digitally through computers and online system,” Patro said.
As per earlier practice, the MLAs were provided with documents like question list of Question Hour, Zero Hour, Business of the Day documents and all other papers related to reports of different committees and others. With the inclusion of the digital initiative, the functioning of all such manual works are likely to get hassle free and less involvement of printing and papers and its cumbersome distribution process.
