Centre's push to make Parliament, state legislatures paperless

'e-Sansad' and 'e-Vidhan' projects to fullfil the aim

The Centre is pushing for 'paper-less' Parliament and state legislatures as part of the Digital India initiative to make their functioning more transparent and economise the entire process of law making.

The implementation of the 'e-Sansad' and 'e-Vidhan' projects would be discussed at length at the two-day All India Whips Conference beginning Monday at Udaipur in Rajasthan.

Both houses of the Parliament have been making notebook computers   available to MPs for quite some time now to enable them easy access to agenda papers, questions and other documents.

As part of the 'Go Green' initiative, the Lok Sabha had discontinued circulation of hard copies of annual reports of ministries, private member bills, parliament questions and made them available online in almost real time basis.

The e-Sansad and e-Vidhan projects would make the functioning of Parliament and State Legislatures participative, responsive, transparent, productive and more accountable to the public and make the entire Legislative process more efficient, said an official of the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry.

He said the 18th All India Whips Conference, scheduled to be inaugurated by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar on Monday, will consider roll-out of the two projects that seek to implement digitisation in Parliament and state legislatures and make their function paperless.

"Some states have made good progress in the field of automation of their Legislatures, yet consumption of huge volume of papers is still going on in these states," he said adding that the Parliamentary Affiars Ministry would provide funding to the "maximum extent" for the implementation of the e-Vidhan project in state legislatures.

A whip is an important functionary of the parliamentary unit of a political party. The functionary's main function is to ensure floor management in both Houses of the Parliament and also has the responsibility for ensuring discipline within the party.

A key function of the Whip is to ensure that members of their parties in Parliament and legislature vote in line with the organisation's official policy on important issues and also to make sure that the members are present when voting for an important issue.