Context

• Union Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs conducted two-day National Orientation workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) in New Delhi.
• On this occasion, a new website of NeVA was also launched by the government.

About

• NeVA is an initiative of Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs. It aims to make all legislatures in the country paperless by making proceedings of houses digital.
• It also aims to provide information about functioning of House to common citizen at click of a button.
• It is a work-flow based app deployed in Cloud (Meghraj) which helps the Chair of the House to conduct the proceedings of the House smoothly and the members to carry out their duties in the House efficiently.
• NeVA is a member-centric, decentralised digital application that makes information available on digital platform about day to day functioning of legislative houses. It hosts secure page for each Member of House for submitting Questions and other Notices.
• It includes mobile applications (both on iOS and android platform) along with NeVA website which act as repository of data related to business of all Legislatures in the country in uniform manner.
• NeVA has been made live for Rajya Sabha in respect of Monsoon Session 2018 and information in respect of Lok Sabha is being updated.
• The user friendly app has made information on conduct of business in Legislatures accessible anytime, anywhere to everyone.

National Orientation workshop on NeVA

• 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. It included technical sessions and group discussions.
• It facilitated exposure for delegates about positive attributes of NeVA, deliberations on issues faced by different State Legislatures in implementation of e-Vidhan and finding solutions thereof.

Significance

• NeVA serves as ‘One Nation, One Application’ by bringing uniformity of database for easy and effective engagement of citizens with Government.
• e-Vidhan is a mission mode project to digitize and make the functioning of State Legislatures paperless. This is part of Digital India programme. It is to be used by the legislatures as well as all the Government departments.
• This will lead to efficient delivery of services and ensure reliability, efficiency, transparency and accountability of all the stakeholders.
• It will bring legislatures closer to citizens, thereby taking decisive step in achievement of substantive democracy.