Nagpur: This year Winter Session of State Legislative Assembly in Nagpur will see MLAs and MLCs go extra tech savvy. If things go as planned, Maharashtra MLAs and MLCs will get tablets during the Nagpur session of the legislature to have online access to their questions and answers. Aiming to go paperless, the state legislature has decided to give tabs to the elected members so that the agenda of the Assembly and Council, replies by the ministers, bills and past references would be stored in digital format.
The Nagpur Assembly hall has got Wi-Fi connection and soon the tabs will be procured for the elected members. A meeting in this regard was held on Tuesday evening at Vidhan Bhavan, giving go-ahead to the initiative. “We have got go ahead from the Speaker for the tabs and other facilities for the MLAs and MLCs. I have personally checked the Wi-Fi lines laid in the Assembly hall. We are soon going to procure tabs with customised data,” deputy chairman of the Legislative Council, Manikrao Thakre, said. The Nagpur session will commence in December.
At present a huge amount of paper go to waste every time during the session of legislature, as the questions-answers, bills, calling attention motion and many reports are printed. Many of these documents are not even read by everyone and hence the legislature has decided to go online to save paper.
“Haryana and Goa Assemblies have already started the initiative and it’s going on well, as per our information. We would be visiting both places soon to learn more techniques to go paperless. Meanwhile, we have decided to procure tabs for our members. The members can keep the tab with them till they remain in the office and also use it for their other official works,” Mr Thakre said.
Asked how much the government will spend on the initiative, he said the legislature has its own budget of `150 crore to give various facilities to the members. “The exact cause of the tabs is not known yet. But we have a total budget of `150 crore, which is sufficient for the tabs,” he added.
Congress MLA Ameen Patel welcomed the initiative. “There is so much of paper wastage every time during the session. We do not even read all the papers and the pigeonholes are full of the documents. Instead, the tab would be compact and easy to carry,” Mr Patel said. However, he also pointed out that the government sanctions Rs 32 lakh for each MLA to buy laptop, computer or ipad for their official use.
