‘Paperless’ House remains on paper

Given the positive impact that it is expected to have in terms of the environment and expenditure, the entire functioning of the govt should get a digital push

Bengaluru might be touted as the IT capital of the country but a proposal to make the Karnataka legislature paperless has been stuck for six years, with implementation missing one deadline after the other. Partly due to the delay, the cost has risen from Rs 60.84 crore to a whopping Rs 254 crore, and there are now attempts to expedite the project without calling for tenders, which has raised many eyebrows. It is a shame that Karnataka continues to lag behind while Nagaland’s Assembly became the first state legislature to implement the National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA), a system for digitising Parliament and legislatures of all states through a single platform on which House proceedings, questions and committee reports would be available. Uttar Pradesh is one of the few legislatures to have fully digitised its proceedings. Himachal Pradesh had implemented a pilot project back in 2014 with touchscreen devices fixed on all tables in the Assembly. The state government had claimed that this had helped save 6,000 trees annually while reducing expenditure by Rs 15 crore. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has said that the proceedings of Parliament and legislatures will be available on one platform by 2023, but it appears that Karnataka will miss this deadline, too.

One of the reasons for the delay is Karnataka’s decision to adopt an independent module instead of NeVA. In 2020, the legislature secretary wrote to the Centre that the State-owned KEONICS had prepared a new detailed project report (DPR) for a Rs 253 crore initiative. To defend the huge cost difference, the letter spoke of increased automation and other features that would make the Karnataka legislature future-ready. The very move to involve KEONICS, whose competence to implement the plan is doubtful, gave rise to suspicion. It has been pointed out that the project could have been implemented faster and at a fraction of the projected cost under NeVA.

There does not seem to be any justification for the huge cost projected. The government would do well to seek third-party technical and financial evaluation. It would be in the interest of the state and the Karnataka legislature if the presiding officers of both Houses intervened immediately to ensure that the project is implemented quickly and at a reasonable cost, before allegations of a ‘scam’ start doing the rounds. Given the positive impact that it is expected to have in terms of the environment and expenditure, the entire functioning of the government, and not just the legislature, should get a digital push. But sadly, today, the dream of a paperless Karnataka remains only on paper.