LG office accuses Arvind Kejriwal government of lagging behind in digitization process

New Delhi: The Delhi Lieutenant Governor’s office on Thursday accused the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government of not implementing the digitization process of the assembly. It said that the Delhi Assembly is the only house in the country which has not yet started the digitization process. The Lt Governor’s Office said, “Eight years after the implementation of the ambitious National e-Legislative Application (NEVA) in 2015, which aims to digitize and paperless legislative assemblies across the country, the Delhi Legislative Assembly is the only House, Which has not yet started the digitization process. It said that despite the central government providing 100 per cent funding for the project, the AAP government in Delhi refused to accept the Centre’s financial and technical assistance for the project in 2019 and instead approved an estimated Rs 20 crore Opted to develop the application on their own at cost. But even after more than four-and-a-half years have passed, the project is yet to materialize. Secretary, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs has written to the LG Secretariat urging it to intervene in the matter and ensure the implementation of the project by utilizing the funds already available under the Neva project. “The L-G Secretariat has forwarded the request to the Principal Secretary (Law, Justice & Legislative Affairs), GNCTD for appropriate action in the matter. It is noteworthy that all the 37 Legislative Assemblies/Councils in the country, except Delhi, have already has started or implemented the process of digitization. In February this year, the Secretary, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, wrote to the Chief Secretary of Delhi, asking the Delhi government to adopt Project Nava. “The Government of India is providing 100 per cent funding to the Union Territory of Delhi for implementation, maintenance, upgradation, customization of the application, capacity building, cloud deployment charges and security audit charges for life, for the digitization of the Legislative Assembly. “Since NEVA is a process-based application, the cost of running the assembly will be minimal, and the entire savings will be spent by the Delhi government and for the convenience of legislators and general public,” the letter to the chief secretary said. According to the LG office, in January 2019, the Delhi Assembly had decided to “opt-out” Project NAVA, saying it would develop the e-Vidhan project from its own budget, estimated at Rs 20 crore. LG’s office claimed, in his letter to Delhi Law Minister Kailash Gahlot in 2020, Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel highlighted the ‘urgent need to digitize and adopt electronic means of communication’ apart from various other benefits of a paperless legislature. Accepted, but the Delhi Assembly and the Delhi government have been sitting on the project since 2019.