National e-Vidhan Application

Introduction

National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) is one of the Mission Mode Projects (MMPs). Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs (MPA) is the "Nodal Ministry‟ for its implementation. e-Vidhan/e-Sansad  have been re-designated as National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) in all the 37 State/UT Legislatures and the 2 Houses of Parliament viz. Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha supported by National Informatics Centre (NIC).

NeVA MMP has a total outlay of Rs.673.94 Crore and approved by Public Investment Board (PIB) on 15th January, 2020 and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs has also approved the same on 27th January, 2020.

Benefits

• NeVA aims to bring all the legislatures of the country together, in one platform thereby creating a massive data depository without having the complexity of multiple applications. The objective of the National e-Vidhan Application is the electronic flow of information, electronic laying of documents on the Table of the House and electronic information exchange among all the stakeholders to create a paperless legislature in the country. This will also provide Data Analytics, Information processing and comparative analysis of the data of all the State Legislatures. The electronic delivery of services to its key stakeholder i.e. the Members of the concerned Legislature is the one of the key missions of the National e-Vidhan Application.
• Bringing this electronic platform accounts for huge savings on paper (App. 340 Cr annually), thereby leading to a reduction of carbon footprints and moving a step forward in the achievement of the United Nation Development Programme's Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) -15 "Life on Earth‟. Himachal Pradesh Assembly was the first one to go paperless after the execution of the pilot project with central assistance of Rs. 8.12 Crores from MeitY in August, 2014. This has resulted in an annual saving of about Rs.5.08 Crores used to be spent on papers, thereby saving ~6000 trees annually.

Features of NeVA

• NeVA has been developed to function as a member centric application, device neutral and user-friendly application to equip all the members to handle diverse House Business elegantly by putting entire information needed by them in their hand held devices/ tablets and equip all the branches of legislatures/ department to handle it efficiently and creating an efficient inclusive database thereby overhauling the way our legislatures work with facilities for live webcasting.
• NeVA is a generic digital application hosted on National Cloud -Meghraj with maintenance, security and disaster recovery for all legislatures.
• NeVA-mobile app will facilitate Ministers/Members to get the entire House Business including replies to questions and papers to be laid in the House, at a specified time before the beginning of the daily proceedings whereas Hon'ble Speaker will get the entire House Business as and when available according to the rules of procedure and conduct of business of houses.
• Inside the House, NeVA Digital House Module will support a digital e-Book format accessible through member's login on touch-screen device installed at Member's Desks. Digital House Module will enable E-voting and E-Attendance along with running the House digitally.
• NeVA will provide all relevant information like Notices, Bulletins which would be issued by legislatures from time to time for information of all members and other stakeholders. Accessibility to contact details, Rules of Procedure, list of business, Starred/Unstarred Questions and Answers, text of Bills for introduction, consideration and passing, text of all papers laid, Committee Report, Proceedings of the House, synopsis of proceedings, provisional calendar and rotation of Ministries, News and press releases and reference materials along with the information relating to composition of all Committees including details of Committee meetings, their agendas, information relating to personal claims of Members like Salary and Allowances etc. will be provided through NeVA. Live webcasting/TV facility is also available on this application.
• NeVA will also help the presiding officers in the management of the House via House Management Applications and e-Book. Hon'ble Ministers, who have to reply to the House, can seek supplementary replies on their mobiles/e-Book from the Administrative Secretaries.

Users of NeVA

The following stakeholders  can use the application for different purposes:-

1. The Members of the Houses across the country
2.  The Ministers of the concerend Government Ministries/Departments
3. The Assembly/House Secretariat Staff
4.  The Government department staff
5. The reporters/media
6. The citizens/public at large for accessing information,etc. 

Services avaiable through NeVA

The following services are provided through NeVA platform to cater to the requirements of the various users:-

• List of Business 
• Papers to be Laid 
• Bills: for Introduction, Consideration & Passing 
• Committee Reports 
• Questions and Answers 
• Bulletins Part: I & II
• Synopsis of Proceedings
• Digital Library
• Notices
• Members Directory

Software & Modules

The CPMU NeVA has been working constantly towards the capacity building measures of the Legislatures, Members and various other stakeholders of the application. To facilitate this, it has come up with elaborate training modules, presentations and short video tutorials for the guidance and the assistance of the stakeholders. Various efforts will be made in this direction for the training of the stakeholders.
Modules developed for various applications:

• Master Data
  This module specifically deals with the role of the Admin and Super Admin and elaborately explains its role. It contains the entire working of the user with the complete master data entry required to be entered into the application to facilitate the workflow based processes to be undertaken, thereafter by the other users.
• User Management
  This module describes step by step process through which a prospective user/stakeholder can register himself on NeVA platform in order to become a part of the integrated and multi-stakeholder NeVA system. Any person who wants to use the NEVA platform should first get himself registered on NeVA platform. In this a user has to provide his basic personal information. The end result of this process results in the generation of the user‟s personal/specific login credentials in form of User Id (Neva Id) and Password.
• Mobile Application
  This Module deals with National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) Mobile Application. It is a single Mobile App for accessing any of the Indian State Legislatures Information. The Mobile App is available for android as well as Ios mobile devices. The mobile app can be installed on the Mobile Phones as well as Tablet Devices. The same App can be used by Hon'ble Members of the respective State Legislatures for submission of all types of Legislative Notices/Questions to their respective State Legislatures.
• Department login reply
  This module deals with the role of various departments in State Government. NeVA facilitates online replying of Questions/Notices etc. by Govt. Departments and makes the functioning of all such departments by bringing them to a common platform of working in terms of their interaction with Legislatures. NeVA also enables the digital laying of Bills, Papers Laid etc. by Govt. Departments. This Section explains the role of Department User which includes the drafting of the reply of Starred and Unstarred Questions raised in their Legislature. It also includes sending of the reply of the notices. This NeVA facilitates electronic submission of all the replies by the departments, thus making all the processes digital.
• Bills Management System
  This module is named as “Bill Management Process Module”. A Bill is proposed legislation under the consideration by a legislature. A Bill does not become a law until it is passed by the legislature and, in most cases, approved by the executive. This module is designed to provide firsthand information to the prospective users of NeVA platform about the process through which a stakeholder/user can engage him in various stages of bill management i.e. the stages through which a “prospective Bill” finally becomes an “Act” on NeVA platform. Different stakeholders/users have different roles, duties, powers, functions etc. in the process of Bill management. This module gives an insight about how different stakeholders are integrated and how the flow of information takes place and in this way educates
  these stakeholders on whole of the online/web-based process through which a Bill becomes an Act. The Bill after its passage in the Houses gets automatically available in the public website after its notification in the e-Gazette and is available to be accessed by the users in the public domain.
• List of Business
  This document deals with the creation of the LOB (List of Business), which is the agenda for a particular day of the session. The user for the Lob creation logs into the dashboard (LOB CMS) and prepares the LOB which contains all the important events which are to take place in the House on a particular day. The created LOB is submitted to the Assembly Secretary for the final approval after which it is published on the public website for the information of the members and various other stakeholders. This LOB will be used as a reference for the Members, Ministers and other dignitaries and officials involved in the working of the House for a particular session date. The published LOB can be seen under the Business tab where the session and the respective dates can be selected, thus listing the LOB with the respective documents.
• Reporter's Module
  The Reporter‟s module is a work flow based web application for preparation of Verbatim Records of House Proceedings. It is possible to make Verbatim Records in any of the scheduled Language. The Reporter‟s Module provides the following functionalities.
  • Assigning Time slots (turns) to Reporters by chief.
  • Preparation of turn-wise files
  • Merging of the turns
  • Submission of turns to chief Reporter
  • Vetting of turns by Chief Reporter.
  • Merging of all turns
  • Publishing of Hourly verbatim on public portal
  • Publishing of Days' Proceedings on public Portal
• Committee Management System
  This application facilitates the functioning of the legislature branch of Government at the center and the state level. The committee system plays a very important function of the legislation; National e-Vidhan Application provides digital system for Committees functioning. The NeVA Committee Management Module can be accessed through NeVA CMS Login. This document describes in detail the process to be followed for use of committee management module. It gives step-by-step guide to help the NeVA user to work on the Committee management module
• Question Processing
  This section elaborates the functioning of the division involved in the Notices/Question Processing at legislation level. It includes the entering a new question/notice, assigning typist to that question, entering further details of the question, sending for proof reading, secretary approval and translator for generating PDF for the question concerned. All these departments work under this common CMS NeVA application to provide hassle free access of the Question raised in the House.
• NeVA Digital House is a part of NeVA Content Management System (CMS) and is designed to make all the processes of a State Legislature Digital (Paperless. NeVA eBook is developed using visual Studio 2017 and Microsoft Sql Server. This software is developed in asp.net core 2.2(an open source technology by Microsoft) in mvc architecture, signal-R core, html, css, JavaScript, jQuery, json, bootstrap etc
  The project “NeVA Digital House” is an Application suite, having following major modules:
  • Digital House
  • E-Book
  • Business Controller
  • Digital Display
  • E-Voting
  • E-Attendance
  • House Productivity Report
  • Talk Time Management
  • Speaker Pad
  • Minister Pad

The following functions are performed by the Digital House Module.

• • E-Laying of all the Papers using Digital e-Book.
  • Communication between Speaker (Chairman) and the Secretary using electronic PAD.
  • Communication between Minister and Administrative Secretaries for exchange of notes during the House Proceedings
  • E-Voting on any of the List of Business Item.
  • E-attendance of the Members.
  • Business Controller Module.
  • Digital Display System of LOB Items.
  • Speaker‟s Talk Time Management.

NeVA in States

• Odisha- 1st state to use NeVA presenting paperless budget : With a tagline of “A model Budget in the country”, Odisha presented Budget 2021-22 in complete electronic form through the NeVA. The budget speech was delivered through tablet device and honorable members accessed this document from E-Book of NeVA. This initiative of e-budget presentation using NeVA would reduce printing of about 1.5 Crore pages of papers and save about 2000 large trees annually. 
• Bihar Legislative Council- 1st digital house using NeVA platform: Bihar Legislative Council became the first legislature in the country to install hardware infrastructure inside the house for digitization of house using NeVA. On 25th November, 2021 inauguration ceremony of NeVA platform took place in the council & Winter Session-2021 of Bihar Legislative Council ran through NeVA.
• Nagaland is the first assembly to install necessary hardware for digitalization through NeVA : The Assembly of Nagaland, a North-eastern State, has become the first Vidhan Sabha in the country to successfully install the necessary hardware in the Assembly for the implementation of the National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) in the State and also to conduct its proceedings using NeVA software in paperless mode.
• Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly : As part of its efforts to go paperless, the Uttar Pradesh Legislative has installed the necessary hardware for the digitalization of the house. The Budget Session -2022 of UP assembly has been conducted through the NeVA platform.

Source: https://neva.gov.in/Home/NeVA