THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government has sanctioned Rs 26.62 crore for the implementation of the e-Niyamasabha project, which aims at a paperless legislative assembly.
As per an order issued by the finance department, the allocation is in addition to the Rs 10 crore sanctioned last year for undertaking the initial activities of the project. The funds will be used for the comprehensive computerization of the legislative procedures, functioning of the legislature secretariat and for meeting the requirements of Sabha TV.
The legislative assembly has switched over to e-Niyamasabha as part of making the assembly paper-free during the tenure of the previous LDF government.
However, a large number of documents are still under circulation in the physical format, especially those which are coming from the secretariat, including the answers to the questions raised by the members.
The members have been complaining that many times, the answers are provided several months after raising the questions, by when, the questions themselves would have become irrelevant.
To resolve the issue, the government is also in the process of integrating the secretariat electronic file flow management system with the e-Niyamasabha project.
The C-DIT’s proposal worth Rs 25.68 lakh to create a digital platform to integrate the secretariat file flow management system with the e-Niyamasabha system has been cleared by the government and the work has begun.
The e-Niyamasabha project has not been free of controversies either. The project, the cost of which has been worked out at Rs 53 crore, was awarded to Uralungal Labour Contract Cooperative Society (ULCCS), the “government accredited agency” for which several government projects are being awarded without inviting any global tender.
As part of the award, the government had also sanctioned Rs 13.59 crore as the mobilization advance to ULCCS for the procurement of infrastructure and software segments of the project. This had run into a major controversy last year when the then opposition leader had sought a probe into the matter.
