'Everything including agenda of House to become paperless in UP'

Lucknow: Ahead of the presentation of 'paperless' Budget in Uttar Pradesh, the state legislative assembly speaker on Sunday said that subsequently everything including the agenda of the House, and questions and answers will become paperless.

"There is a plan to implement the e-Vidhan in all the legislative assemblies of the country. It will be implemented in Uttar Pradesh as well, and the required money for its implementation will also be paid by us. For this project, the Union Parliamentary Affairs minister has been made the nodal," UP's Legislative Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dixit said on Sunday.

Uttar Pradesh has filled all the required documents, and it is ready to ink an MoU with the Centre on this. They are moving ahead on this, and the necessary equipment have been installed, he added.

"The 'paperless' budget is a part of the e-vidhan. Now, this (budget) is going to be paperless. Subsequently, everything will be paperless. Once the e-vidhan is implemented then the agenda will also become paperless, and the question and answers will also become paperless. "At this time, it will be only the budget, which will be paperless, rest of the things are yet to be made paperless including the agenda and copies of bills," Dixit said.

He also informed that as the finance minister will read his budget speech on his tablet and the MLAs will be able to see it on their tablets.

To a question on whether e-Vidhan will be implemented by the Monsoon Session of the Assembly, Dixit said, "Nothing can be said as of now. It may or may not be implemented. But, the Centre wants that it should be speedily implemented. We also want that it should be implemented at the earliest."

"Things which the public used to know through the newspaper will be known to them rather fast. 60 per cent of cost will be borne by the Centre, while 40 per cent of the cost will be borne by the state,"

he said.

'e-Vidhan' is one of the 44 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) under Digital India Programme launched by Government of India with a vision to transform the country into a Digitally Empowered Society and knowledge economy.